


Trouble on the Trail to Texas

by IdaArmindaMoss, RKMacBride



Series: Let Him That Stole Steal No More [1]
Category: Alias Smith and Jones, Laredo
Genre: Christian content, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-08 03:38:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17378864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IdaArmindaMoss/pseuds/IdaArmindaMoss, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RKMacBride/pseuds/RKMacBride
Summary: Heyes and Curry help the intended victims of a robbery attempt in Denver, and find themselves hired for a new job which will take them hundreds of miles away.  Can they keep themselves and the folks who hired them safe on the trail until they get to their destination?





	1. Election Day, 1880

**Author's Note:**

> English spelling and hyphenation conventions follow those in use at the time of the story, as far as possible. Many features which we now think of as typically American did not actually come into common use until after the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A robbery attempt in broad daylight on 15th Street in Denver involves a reluctant Heyes and Curry in trying to protect a pair of strangers and the money they carry.

 

 

 **Denver, Colorado, November 2d,** ****[1]** ** **1880**

       Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry stepped away from the counter in the First National Bank at 15th and Blake Streets.  They had encountered no trouble in cashing the check they’d been given, rather unusually, in payment for a job, made out to Joshua Smith in the amount of two hundred dollars.  It was the second of November, and with winter approaching, they were looking around for another job, preferably one that would take them to the south or east and away from the mountains—anything, as Kid was fond of saying, that wasn’t illegal or hard on the back.

The First National Bank at 15th and Blake, Denver (original image from Denver Public Library)

       “Look at that.”  Kid nudged his partner, speaking softly.

       Heyes took in the situation at a glance.  At a nearby teller window, a tall young woman with black hair pinned up in a coil of braids was standing next to a man, obviously related to her from the similarity in their appearance, as the teller counted out a large bundle of currency.  Behind them and to one side, easily within Heyes’s field of vision, a group of three men loitered casually, watching the transaction.  _It might not mean anything_ , Heyes thought, _but those fellows are awfully interested in somebody else’s cash_.

       “If those men follow them out, we’d better take a hand,” Kid commented.

       Sighing, Heyes realized this was going to be another of those times when Kid utterly refused to follow the common-sense principle that they should ignore what was none of their business, and concentrate on keeping Lom Trevors and the governor of Wyoming happy while they pursued their amnesty.  Maybe his partner was right—looking out for other people as well as themselves just felt better, somehow.  Even though it had already gotten them into a lot of trouble, it had also gained them friends, like Belle and Jesse Jordan and their daughters.

       Having carefully stowed the money away in a pair of saddlebags, the young man and his sister headed out the door.  They were now, Kid noted with approval, keeping a fairly sharp look-out around them, but the suspicious group of men had dropped back behind the table holding the scales kept there for weighing gold dust, and were not in their line of sight.

 

       Across the bank lobby a few minutes earlier, Miss Paula Wellington had barely managed to prevent herself from staring in astonished recognition at the slender, dark-haired young man with humorous brown eyes, sporting a fine-wale brown corduroy jacket and a ribbon tie of a slightly lighter color that harmonized nicely with his cream-colored shirt and brown trousers.  His otherwise unremarkable black hat bore an extremely distinctive leather hatband decorated with silver hexagons and lightning bolts.  His partner, about the same height, had curly light brown hair, blue-grey eyes, and a neatly trimmed light brown moustache.  He wore a brown hat with a thin silver band and a tan leather jacket over his white shirt.  She did not recall ever having seen the man with the moustache before, but she was fairly certain of Hannibal Heyes.

       Her mind went back to the first and only time she had seen him—more than two years previously, on July 29th, 1878, the day of the total solar eclipse.  About an hour after the eclipse, the train on which she and her brother were passengers had been stopped just east of Rawlins, Wyoming by a gang of outlaws.  The leader seemed to be a charming rogue, shouting to the engineer and the express messenger to “stand and deliver” as though he fancied himself to be a latter-day Dick Turpin.[2]

       After the hold-up, which the young outlaw leader and his gang had carried out with courtesy and efficiency, the train had proceeded to the next town, where a curious Paul Wellington had gone to the sheriff’s office to ask if anything was known of the robbers.  When the sheriff heard what the leader had shouted, he had laughed heartily—that was the trademark of Hannibal Heyes, he had told Wellington.  Undoubtedly it was he who had carried out the robbery, with his partner Kid Curry and the Devil’s Hole gang.  The sheriff had said that it wouldn’t be much use to try to get a posse together to pursue them, because they were probably halfway back to their hideout by that time; besides, very few men in the town would agree to make up such a posse, as the outlaws were popular locally and had never done anyone in the town any harm.

       Miss Wellington recalled that her brother had passed on that information as a matter of interest, and had then proceeded to forget all about the incident.  He had been looking out the windows on the opposite side of the train as Heyes had ridden up close to the passenger cars, and later, when two of the gang members had requested the passengers to disembark, Heyes had been temporarily out of sight inside the express car.  She wondered if Paul had ever actually obtained a good look at the outlaw leader.

       Distracted, she lost track of her primary responsibility, which was to make a continuous surveillance of the bank lobby and the people in it while her brother and the teller counted the money.  They had carried large sums of money before and were well aware of the need to keep a look-out for opportunists who might wish to relieve them of it.  Continuing to steal furtive glances at Heyes and his partner, wondering whether the other man might be Kid Curry, what they were doing in the bank, and whether they intended to rob it later, she failed to notice the three men watching them from the other direction.

      

       When the Wellingtons emerged into the street and prepared to mount their horses, hitched to the rail a short distance away just south of the bank entrance, the three men casually followed them out.

       Kid and Heyes walked quietly out to 15th Street behind them, alert for trouble.  The intention of the would-be robbers was immediately obvious.  One man had slipped to the right of the door and was leaning against one of the brick columns.  A second had swung to the right to come up to their target in plain view, while the third dropped quietly to the left, stepping out to give himself a clear approach from the back toward the young man carrying the saddlebags on his right shoulder.  It was apparent that one of the men planned to approach from the front, presumably to ask directions or something similar to distract the man carrying the money, while a second man came up behind to snatch the saddlebags.  He would have to push the young woman out of the way in order to give himself a clear escape route, but clearly that little detail had not caused them to alter their plan.  The third man was off to one side in case the victim attempted pursuit.

       Kid didn’t even need to exchange a glance with his partner.  They both knew what to do.  Heyes slid to the right, his attention divided between the man making the frontal approach and the back-up man.  Kid moved toward the man coming up from behind, ready to draw, hoping he wouldn’t need to shoot.  Gunfire in the middle of the street in one of Denver’s major business and financial districts was likely to attract more attention than they wanted.

      

       Seeing four men approaching, all wearing tied-down guns, and unable to determine whether they were acting together or separately, Paul Wellington drew his own gun.  “That’s close enough, friend,” he said pleasantly to the man walking toward him, just as the man opened his mouth and began to ask for directions.  Behind, the second robber decided that one distraction was as good as another, and sprang forward quickly, his hand reaching out for the saddlebags.

       Curry drew and cocked his Colt in one smooth motion.  “Hold it right there!” he warned.  The second man froze in dismay. 

       Out of the corner of her eye, Paula saw the flashing speed of the draw—or rather, she didn’t see it, she realized.  She only saw the gun appear in the hand of Heyes’s partner as if by magic, while the sound of the hammer being drawn back relayed a warning, like a rattlesnake about to strike.  At the same time, to her right, she saw a man who had been lounging against the brick column draw his own gun and level it.  Knowing that Hannibal Heyes and his partner, who, she was quite irrationally sure, were not part of the robbery attempt but were trying to help them, would be more free to move if they did not need to worry about whether she was in the line of fire, she flung herself down to the boardwalk, heedless of the dust marking her dark blue riding skirt.  Her left hand went to the tailored skirt pocket where she kept her own gun. 

       Heyes’s Smith & Wesson Schofield was out with creditable speed.  He ducked to one side as the back-up man fired at him with a shout of rage, and fired back, his bullet passing through the material of the man’s shirt sleeve, drawing blood and striking brick fragments from the column behind him.  A moment later, the roar of Kid’s shot almost blended with the report of his own.  The would-be robber was holding his right hand with his left and cursing, his gun dropping to the ground as the second bullet dug a shallow crease across the back of his wrist. 

       Swinging back to cover his original target while re-cocking his gun, Curry levelled his Colt at the man’s head, unsmiling.  The robber hastily raised his hands.  Heyes covered the wounded man, noticing with a certain amount of surprise that both the young man and his sister were covering the remaining robber with their own guns.  Obviously his first assessment of them as nice but rather helpless would need revising.  The young lady was sitting composedly on the edge of the boardwalk, a business-like heavy-calibre Colt revolver in her left hand, though where it had come from, Heyes had no idea.  _Right now, we’ve got other problems_ , he thought to himself, seeing a policeman in a blue uniform[3] running toward them from the stage station at the intersection of 15th and Holladay[4] to the south.

       Checking to be sure that Paula had the man in front of them covered, Paul lowered his gun at the policeman’s approach.  “Thank you for coming, sir.”  Seeing the policeman draw a notebook from his pocket, he continued.  “My name is Paul Wellington.  My sister and I just withdrew a large sum from the bank.  These three men,” he indicated the robbers with his free hand “attempted to distract us, presumably so they could snatch the saddlebags containing the money.  We are indebted to these two gentlemen,” he nodded to Heyes and Kid “for their timely assistance.”  While the policeman finished taking the statement, he paused to holster his gun and to remove one of his cards, bearing the name and postal address of their Estes Park horse ranch, the C Bar W, from the case in his vest pocket.  Handing the card to the officer, he continued, “We’re leaving town later today, so if you would like us to sign statements now, we should be happy to do so.  Here is where we may be reached in case you should need us later.”

***   ***   ***

       In the semi-private dining saloon on the second floor of the People’s Restaurant[5], across the street from the bank, Heyes and Kid sipped the excellent coffee with enjoyment while waiting for the food to arrive.  After the three men had been taken into custody, Mr. and Miss Wellington had insisted on thanking their rescuers by offering to buy lunch for the whole party.  Never averse to picking up a free meal, the partners had accepted with alacrity.

Advertisement for Barney Ford’s newly re-opened People’s Restaurant at 1514 Blake (original image from Denver Public Library)

       “The police won’t be able to hold those men long, more’s the pity,” Wellington was saying.  “They committed no crime, unless one counts firing at you, Mr. Smith,” he nodded to Heyes, “and you didn’t lodge a complaint.  I doubt they can be held very long on a charge of disturbing the peace.”

       “No need to make a complaint,” said Heyes easily, “when the man has a wound in his hand from my partner’s gun.  I expect he got the idea not to try that again.  Anyway, he won’t be able to handle a gun for a while.”  He wasn’t going to bring up the real reason he hadn’t given a statement to the police officer—a man wanted for bank and train robbery naturally preferred to limit his dealings with the law as much as possible.  “This is some of the best coffee I’ve ever tasted,” he added with satisfaction.

       Kid finished his coffee and flagged the waiter down, with a smile, to ask for another cup.  “Almost,” he agreed.  Heyes gave him a sardonic look, but refrained from comment.

       “That’s why we come here every time we find ourselves in Denver,” their host commented.  “Not for the coffee, you understand.  They also make the best tea of any place we’ve found in the American West—as good as what one can get in London or Edinburgh.”  He lifted his teacup to his lips as he spoke.

       Paul Wellington was a little puzzled, because normally Paula would handle at least some of the small talk in a social situation of this kind, but she had been silent ever since they left the bank.  _Perhaps she’s suffering from a little shock at the unexpected shooting_ , he thought, _though that doesn’t make a great deal of sense.  She’s not afraid of gunfire_.  He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.  No, she did not appear to be frightened or upset, just pensive and a trifle distracted.  He wondered what was wrong.

       Soon after their lunch arrived, they noticed a tall, middle-aged Negro, sporting a neat beard just turning grey, crossing the dining room floor toward their table.  From the expensive elegance with which he was dressed, it was obvious that he was not one of the wait staff.  Heyes and Kid looked at one another questioningly.  The man bowed slightly to Miss Wellington and then to her brother.  “Miss Wellington, it’s good to see you and Mr. Wellington here again,” he greeted them in a cultured voice.  “I hope you and your party have found everything to your liking?”

       Paul rose to shake hands; resuming his seat, he replied, “Thank you, Mr. Ford.  Everything is excellent, as always, most especially the hot tea, made just the way we like it.”  He included Heyes and Curry with a gesture.  “Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones are dining here for the first time, I believe.  This is Mr. Barney Ford, who owns this restaurant and several other businesses in this block.  We are indebted to Mrs. Ford for the excellence of the cuisine here.”

       “Please tell her that the food is really good,” Heyes said, as they also rose to shake hands, giving Kid a look to keep him quiet in case he had any more invidious comparisons to make with the excellence of the cooking at Miss O’More’s establishment in Telluride.[6]  “My partner and I plan to come back, next time we’re in Denver.”

       “I shall certainly tell her, and we will be most happy to welcome you on a return visit, either here or in one of the other establishments on the lower floors, Mr. Smith,” Ford answered.  Part of his success as a businessman depended on remembering names.  He exchanged another polite word or two, and then excused himself to attend to his other customers.

       “Owns most of the block, did you say?” asked Heyes, curious.

       “Yes.  I’ve heard that he is one of the wealthiest men in Denver, his fortunes mostly founded on this restaurant and its predecessor, as well as the Inter-Ocean Hotel in the next block, which he built in 1873, though he no longer owns it,” Paul replied.  “Perhaps this situation is unique to Denver.  I’m not certain of that, but excellence in business and an attention to giving customers what they want will almost always bring success to anyone willing to put in the work required.  I understand the man is a former slave, but that has obviously not hindered his ability to make money here in Colorado as an honest businessman.”[7]

       “I have a proposition for you gentlemen.  Paula and I have done this sort of thing before—transporting cash, that is—and have always managed to look out for ourselves and protect the money we were carrying.  I am ashamed that you saw us so unprepared today.”  He saw Paula hastily look down at her plate, spots of red on her cheekbones.  _So it_ was _partly her fault.  She wasn’t paying attention.  What the deuce is going on?_   “We are acting as couriers, taking this money to Laredo, Texas.  We’ve arranged to do the entire eleven hundred miles on horseback, not taking the train or the stage, and avoiding hotels and major towns, as a safety precaution.  After what happened today, I am beginning to think we should be grateful for some assistance on the trail.  Would you be willing to consider a job, escorting us to Laredo, for a flat fee of six hundred dollars?  There would be a bonus—another four hundred—if we run into trouble and you are obliged to help fight off attackers.  We expect the trip to take about three weeks, perhaps a little longer.  We would, of course, provide the food and other supplies, and my sister is an experienced trail cook.  What do you say?”

       Heyes and Kid exchanged glances.  While involving a lot of time in the saddle, the job would pay well, and would take them where they wanted to be—away from the Colorado and Wyoming winter weather.  “How much money are you carrying?” Heyes asked. 

       “Sixty thousand dollars.” 

       The pair exchanged another glance.  “We’ll take it,” said Heyes.  “But with that much money at stake, you’ll need references.”

        Wellington smiled.  “I was going to bring that up next.”  He drew a small tablet and pencil out of his vest pocket.

       “Sheriff Lom Trevors of Porterville, Wyoming, his deputy Harker Wilkins, and Miss Caroline Porter, manageress of the bank in the same town,” offered Heyes, thinking quickly.  Most of their other friends could hardly be considered suitable as references for a prospective job involving the care of large sums of money.  “There’s an Army colonel in Wyoming that we did a similar job for once.  Not sure of his address now …”

       “Those three will do excellently well,” said Paul, making a note of the names, and failing to notice the look of bemused surprise on his sister’s face. 

       As they finished their meal, he handed over one hundred dollars apiece to the two men to bind the deal, and added, “I’m planning to vote on our way out of town, at least in the presidential election, though as our residence is in Larimer County, I shan’t be able to vote in any other contests here.  We became U.S. citizens only a few years ago, so I take the civic duty to vote very seriously.  You’ve voted already, I expect?”

       Heyes and Kid looked at each other.  Neither had ever voted in a presidential election.  In 1872, Curry had been too young, and Heyes was already riding with the Devil’s Hole gang in southern Wyoming, none of the outlaws seeing the need to take time away from their regular activities in order to vote.  By 1876, both partners had been in Devil’s Hole and hadn’t given the matter a thought.  _Well, this year there’s actually no reason we couldn’t vote, I suppose_ , Heyes thought, _except that we don’t have an address_.  He mentioned this aloud. 

       Their prospective employer showed no surprise and asked no questions.  “You could use ours, I believe, if I write out a statement for each of you, stating that you are employed by the C Bar W Ranch in Estes Park.  If you will accompany us to the polls, I could swear to that if necessary.”

       The cousins exchanged another glance.  “Thanks,” responded Kid.  “We’ll take you up on that offer.”

       Heyes said softly as they walked to their horses, “Kid, do you even know who’s running for President?”

       “Sure I do.  I read the papers.  Hancock and English are the Democrats, and Garfield and Arthur are the Republicans,” said his partner, annoyed.  “And I think there’s somebody named Weaver running, too.  I remember him because he belongs to the Greenback Party.”[8]

       Swinging into his saddle and turning his horse to follow the Wellington twins, Heyes grinned.  “Yeah, that’s a good reason to remember.  Of course, we don’t know what he wants to do with greenbacks—abolish ‘em, or make more.  As chancy as the value is, I think they should stop making them and just stick with gold and silver.”

       “So we don’t vote for him,” Kid said phlegmatically, moving his horse up alongside.  “Heyes, we’ve really gone straight, haven’t we?  We’re gonna vote for who gets to be President of the United States!”

       “Yeah.”  Heyes chuckled.  “It really is kinda unbelievable.  Wonder what they’d say if they knew our real names?”

       A few feet ahead, Paula Wellington was wondering the same thing, and also trying to decide whether she should say something to her brother.  Eventually, she decided against it.  The street and the polling place were both far too public places in which to discuss the matter.

       After the men[9] had cast their votes, the four prepared to mount up and head out of town, following the line of Cherry Creek to the south and east in order to leave the built-up area of central Denver as quickly as possible.

***   ***   ***

       Miss Wellington was preparing supper that evening, while their new acquaintances rode off to perform a check of the camp’s perimeter and Paul gathered firewood and laid the fire before arranging a small tent for his sister’s use.  She glanced up quizzically.  “Paul?  Do you realize that you just hired Hannibal Heyes and—if his partner’s the same man who was working with him in 1878—probably Kid Curry, to guard the money and escort us to Laredo?”

       He stared at her, astonished.  “I beg your pardon?  Are you certain?”

       “You heard me,” she responded.  “I’m not certain that the one with the moustache and the curly hair _is_ Kid Curry, no, but I couldn’t mistake Heyes.”  She bent her head to the task of forming the dough into biscuits to be baked on the fire in the Dutch oven.  "But as rapid as his partner's draw was, I can't imagine anyone else it could be."

       “ _Mo thruaighe_!”[10] exclaimed her brother, so shocked as to lapse into their native Gaelic.  _Dear God, she’s not still thinking of that outlaw in that rather peculiar way?  We know almost nothing about him, and what we know isn’t good.  So that’s why she failed to keep a good lookout in the bank!_   Aloud, Paul suggested, “Perhaps you should have told me this  _before_  I hired them?”   _It’s as I told her in ’seventy-eight—if she gives any more evidence of having taken leave of her senses, I shall have to take strong measures.  But what can I do_?  “Paula, don’t be daft!”  The expression that their Argyleshire-born[11] mother had always used seemed quite appropriate here. 

       Paula smiled a little wryly.  She could usually depend on her twin brother, so much closer than a brother would usually be, to understand her fairly well.  Apparently this was not one of those times.  “I thought you knew it was too late for that, Paul.  To tell me not to be daft, that is.  As far as telling you who Heyes was, when would I have had the opportunity to do that?  I don’t know that it’s that great a matter for concern.  He and his partner are obviously no longer engaged in robbing banks and holding up trains, and they gave us the name of a Wyoming sheriff as a reference.  I don’t know precisely what that means—it will be interesting to wire Sheriff Trevors and see what he has to say about Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones, and that’s something I think you should do in any case—but I don’t think we’re in any danger of being robbed.  Besides, they went to considerable trouble to help us out back there at the bank in Denver, even at the risk of attracting a policeman’s attention.” 

       Just then, they heard the sounds of horses approaching, and looked up to see the two men returning to the camp site.  Further discussion would have to be postponed until they could be alone and safe from interruption.  They were in tacit agreement that nothing should be said to Heyes and his partner just yet, because the outlaws would probably refuse to go any further with the job they had been hired for, and the Wellingtons knew that they might actually need their help in the ensuing weeks, especially on some of the more isolated and dangerous parts of the trail after it left the relative safety of the route beside the newly laid railroad tracks.[12]

 

* * *

[1] The ordinal abbreviations for “second” and “third” were written as “d” rather than “nd” and “rd” in the late 19th century; _q.v._ the Sherlock Holmes stories as originally published.

[2] The spurious legend of Dick Turpin was established in 1739 with the book  _Life of Richard Turpin_ , and sealed with the novel  _Rookwood_  (1834) by Harrison Ainsworth, in which the highwayman Dauntless Dick Turpin, with his horse Black Bess, was a secondary character.  During the next fifty years, replays of the Turpin story as told by Ainsworth appeared in magazines, cheap novels, and ballads around the world.  Stories about him were printed regularly in “Boy’s Life” and other late 19th-century publications readily available to a boy growing up in the American West.

[3] Denver had an actual police force at this date, not just a city marshal and deputies.  Whether they had uniforms is not documented, but they did have badges.  <http://www.denverpolicemuseum.org/history/badges.html>

[4] Now Market Street.  <http://denverhistorytours.blogspot.com/2009/10/history-of-naming-of-market-street.html>

[5] Now the Barney L. Ford Building, 1514 Blake Street.  <http://denverstorytrek.org/sites/dddf54ee673540c26ab44d5eadb9c4daf4f86645> 

[6] This mining town in southwestern Colorado was actually called Columbia at the time, but was renamed to avoid confusion with the town of Columbia in California.  Hoping to discover deposits of gold-bearing tellurium (which were never found), the town fathers optimistically named the town “Telluride.”  This story uses the later name.

[7] Barney Ford was already a millionaire at this period, well known in Denver’s business community.  His story gives the lie to assertions made in the second-season episode “The Bounty Hunter.”  The episode has several historical inaccuracies, some of the most egregious of the latter having to do with the supposed inability of a black man to find good work in the West after the Civil War. 

In addition to work as law officers and in restaurants, barbershops, and other respectable businesses, black men were readily able to find work as cowboys on the major cattle ranches of western Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, comprising 15% to 25% of cowboys working the ranches and trail drives.  <http://www.pbs.org/wnet/ranchhouse/1867_essay6b.html>  The first modern research on Negroes in the American West was published in 1965, making it difficult to understand why an episode filmed in 1971 would include such errors.

[8] [http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?f=0&fips=8&year=1880](http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/state.php?f=0&fips=8&year=1880)

[9] Women in Wyoming Territory had had the vote since 1869; however, suffrage was not extended to women resident in Colorado until 1893.

[10] Literally “my misery” or “my calamity”.

[11] This spelling, “Argyle,” was used through the beginning of the 1850s, when the more recent spelling “Argyll” began to be used.  Both spellings were used more or less interchangeably through the end of the 19th century.  Both are pronounced “ar-GUY-ull.”

[12] The rail route over Ratón Pass and into northern New Mexico was completed in 1880.


	2. On the Trail South

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heyes and Curry are able to earn the bonus promised them before the party has been on the road for more than three days, and then to assure themselves that the money they were hired to guard really exists. Mr. and Miss Wellington send a telegraph to Lom Trevors and later have an opportunity for private talk.

**Thursday, November 4th** **, 1880**

The end of the third day of the trip saw them camping just south of Colorado Springs.  They had been able to make good time on the well-maintained roads, averaging more than fifty miles a day while still able to stop for leisurely meals, rest their horses as needed, and get plenty of sleep.  The extra time gained would stand them in good stead as the increasingly mountainous terrain to the south slowed their pace.  The one pack horse they had with them to carry the cooking gear and other bulky items had kept up easily, his load heavier than for the four horses carrying riders.  Although the Wellingtons were both riding purebred Arabians—Paula’s mount a black stallion with a small white star on his forehead, retired from regular use in their ranch’s breeding program, and her brother’s a younger dark grey gelding—the endurance and general superiority of the sturdy Arabian-Morgan crosses with which they had been experimenting was demonstrated by the pack horse’s better condition at the end of each day’s travel compared to the quarter horses Heyes and Curry were riding, a fact not lost on the two partners. 

       Heyes thought seriously of making an offer to buy a pair of the cross-breeds at some later date.  He wondered how one would describe such a horse.  Maybe he could even make up a new word for it—call it a ‘Morab’ or something like that.  He chuckled at the thought.  No, that sounded too stupid for words.  It would never catch on.

       When they made their usual round of the camp site before going to bed, Kid said quietly, “Heyes, we’re being followed.  We’d better be ready for trouble tonight.”

       “Yeah, I thought I saw something once or twice this afternoon.  Maybe both of us’d better keep watch.  One of us can pretend to go to sleep, like we’ve done before, see if we can decoy them in.”

       Curry nodded.  “No need to alarm Miss Wellington by mentioning it until we’re sure.”

       “Is that what you think?”  Heyes chuckled.  “I’m beginning to think it would take a lot to alarm her.”  He’d been taking the opportunity to chat with Miss Wellington, since she seemed to enjoy his company, and to observe her on the trail when he wasn’t riding beside her.  He liked what he saw.  She was perfectly ladylike, but obviously a very good horsewoman; equally obviously, she was in excellent condition for the long ride ahead, undaunted by the several hundred miles they still had to cover.  Once they had left the streets of Denver, she had shifted from riding side-saddle fashion in the Western saddle, one leg curled around the saddle horn, to riding astride, decently enough, in her split riding skirt.  She was also a good conversationalist, he had found, encouraging him to talk about himself, the terrain, and the history of the area, drawing him out about subjects she thought might be of interest, but readily changing the subject if he appeared to find the talk taking an uncomfortable turn.  Well, she wasn’t alone in being a good, strong Western woman, retaining her femininity while managing to hold her own and work alongside the men—he’d met others—though it was more unusual to find such traits in a lady with a noticeable British accent, obviously not born or raised along the Front Range.

       A few hours before dawn, the precautions he and Kid had taken paid off.  Heyes, on watch, heard stealthy sounds as though someone was trying to creep closer unseen.  He stepped casually over to Wellington’s bedroll under the pretext of bending to put more wood on the fire, and touched the other man’s shoulder with his boot.  The Englishman was awake in an instant.  Kid, Heyes knew, was already awake, his gun in his hand under his blankets.  Stepping out of the firelight so he would not be such an easy target, careful not to look directly into the flames and lose his night vision, Heyes drew his own gun and waited.

       The attackers were not very smart after all.  The rush came suddenly out of the darkness, from behind Heyes, as though the men had not even given a thought to the other two armed men in the party, or to the lady in her tent.  Moving to put his back against a rock outcropping, Heyes glanced over quickly to make sure that Miss Wellington was not in immediate danger, and was relieved, though not really very surprised, to see the firelight glinting off the muzzle of a revolver poked unobtrusively out through the tent flap.

       Two men rushed toward the fire, closing in on Wellington’s bedroll where the saddlebags containing the money lay temptingly beside the supposed sleeper’s head.  Heyes saw them, but remained alert, knowing the third man had to be somewhere nearby.  When the tallest robber burst from the shrubbery and charged him, therefore, he was more than ready.  Heyes brought the barrel of his pistol down on the man’s gun hand as he paused at the edge of the firelight.  The attacker spun around with an oath, dropping his gun, perforce, but swinging his other hand, balled into a fist, toward Heyes’s head.  A swing, Heyes knew, always took more time to execute than a straight underhand jab or short hook.  He proceeded to demonstrate this with a nice left to the man’s jaw, dropping him where he stood.

       Looking at the other two, he realized that his guess and Kid’s had been right.  One of them had his right wrist bandaged, holding his revolver somewhat awkwardly in his left hand.  These were indeed the same men who had tried to rob the Wellingtons in the street outside the First National Bank.  Apparently the police had been unable to hold them for very long on a charge of disturbing the peace. 

       Kid’s order came quietly as soon as the men had scooped up the saddlebags.  “That’s far enough.  Hold it right there.”  The sound of his Colt being cocked backed up his demand.

       As the two robbers turned toward the sound, Wellington’s soft British voice joined in.  “Yes, I think that will do nicely.  Now we can witness to having seen you take possession of stolen goods.”

       One of the men angrily turned toward the tent, but whatever he might have been about to do, possibly thinking of grabbing the lady to improve their odds of escaping, was frustrated as Miss Wellington said clearly, still out of sight behind the tent flap, “I’m awake, and I have another gun pointed at both of you.  If I were you, I should give it up as a bad day.”

       With four cocked pistols levelled at them, the attackers raised their hands and surrendered.  Recovering the saddlebags, Paul retrieved the robbers’ weapons; then he, Heyes, and Kid set about tying up their captives.  They would have to hold them until there was some chance of the sheriff in Colorado Springs being awake so that they could turn the men over to him and be on their way.

       Kid carefully tied the man with the injured wrist up to a clump of small trees by using a rope to bind his arms without overly straining the wrist.  “Sorry about this,” he said cheerfully to the robber.  “I’m sure the sheriff will get a doctor to look at that wrist once you’re in jail.”  As he said the word, it suddenly occurred to him that taking these men into Colorado Springs to the sheriff, who just might know him and Heyes by sight, however unlikely that might be, was the last thing they wanted to do.  He looked over at his partner, who was frowning, the same thought obviously passing through his mind.

       Wellington spoke up.  “We’re not going to get any more sleep now.  Tea would be welcome—and coffee, of course, for our friends and our unexpected guests.”  He looked at his sister, who nodded.

       “You gentlemen get the fire built up and I’ll take care of that,” she assured them.

       He continued, “I don’t really like the idea of all four of us taking the three of them to the sheriff in Colorado Springs, taking the money with us.  Two of us should take them in while the other two remain here with the money and the pack horse.”  He paused, looking enquiringly at the two outlaws.  “Joshua?  Thaddeus?  Would you mind very much staying here?  You can take whatever precautions you think appropriate to protect the cash.  It will probably take us several hours to turn these men over, sign the necessary statements, and return.”

       Heyes and Kid exchanged their customary quick glances.  The offer harmonized perfectly with their own preferences.  “We’ll do that, Mr. Wellington.”

       Paula bent over her preparations for a very early breakfast, carefully avoiding her brother’s eye.  _I should think he’s doing that on purpose—taking a risk now so that we can be a little more certain of Heyes’s and Curry’s good intentions, and not have to worry about them later.  I hope I’m right, telling him that I think they’ve gone straight.  If not—if we come back to find Heyes, Curry, and the money gone—we’ll have to make an effort to recover that money, since it’s not ours, or make up the loss ourselv_ e _s, and we’ll know we were wrong about them_.

       Untying their prisoners’ hands, one at a time, while Wellington kept his gun pointed at them, they fed the three men with fresh coffee and hot biscuits, topped off with some chokecherry jam they had purchased in Denver.  Neither of the twins cared for sweet preserves—most of the jam was intended as a gift for their friends in Laredo—but there was plenty of it to spare—or there should have been, Paula thought, noticing that Heyes and his partner were enjoying lashings of it on their biscuits as well.  There was a small packet of butter, wrapped in greaseproof paper, which even so would not last very much longer.  She applied some of it to her own biscuit, sipping her tea with enjoyment.

       Heyes took over the guard duty so that Wellington could have his breakfast while everything was still hot.  One nice thing about this trip, he reflected, was the good food, even though they were not taking the time to stop at restaurants or hotels to eat.  Paul had not been exaggerating when he said that his sister was an excellent trail cook.

***   ***   ***

       After the Wellingtons had departed for Colorado Springs with three very discouraged prisoners, leaving Heyes and Kid with plenty of left-over hot food and coffee, the two outlaws looked at each other.  “I’d say we’d better catch up on some sleep, one at a time,” suggested Heyes.  “I know I didn’t get any last night, and I don’t think you did, either.”

       “Yeah, sleep sounds good.  At least we caught ‘em, and nobody got hurt.  Maybe now we can get on with this trip and have some peace and quiet,” Kid replied with a yawn.  Another thought occurred to him.  “You know what, Heyes?  You ought to take the opportunity to check on what we’re supposed to be guarding.  After what’s happened to us before, I’d like to be sure that the money or whatever we were hired to look after is really there.”

       “Yeah, you got a point.”  Heyes went over to where the saddlebags with the cash had been stashed, underneath some other items ready to be loaded on the pack horse when they broke camp.  Opening both flaps, he slid out the oilskin-wrapped packets.  “Well, it looks like federal currency[1], all right.  Get busy and start counting.”  He tossed one packet to his partner and began counting the bills in the other one.

       After a few minutes, Kid looked up.  “Thirty thousand, in good federal bills.”

       “Same here,” confirmed Heyes.  “That’s one good thing.  The money that we were hired to protect is here, in the amount we were told, and it’s not counterfeit.”  Carefully, he wrapped the packages exactly as they had been originally and returned them to the saddlebags, pouring himself a fresh cup of coffee on the way back to the rock where Kid was sitting.  “I like these folks, don’t you?  They might be good friends to have, even if it’s only to give us a reference later to say we did this job for them.”  Receiving no answer, he glanced over to find that his cousin had fallen asleep where he sat.

***   ***   ***

       After turning their prisoners over to the sheriff, writing out detailed statements, and leaving addresses in both Texas and Colorado where they might be reached, Miss Wellington and her brother, by common consent, headed to the telegraph office, located, as was usual, next to the train station.  The first order of business was to contact Sheriff Trevors in Porterville.  At the last moment, Paul decided to take another precaution, and wired the post office in Porterville asking the name of the town sheriff.  When the reply came back that the sheriff was indeed a man called Lom Trevors, Paul sent another wire asking Trevors for information, saying that they had hired two men as a protective escort for a valuable consignment on a long trip, and had been given Trevors’s name.  Paula, meanwhile, wrote out a message to Captain Edward Parmalee of Texas Ranger Company B in Laredo, giving an update on their location and their estimated date of arrival, and adding that after having encountered trouble in Denver, they had hired two men, Joshua Smith and Thaddeus Jones, as additional protection for the goods being transported.  Wanting to give Parmalee the name of Sheriff Trevors if he turned out to be willing to supply a good reference for their new friends, she held onto the message form until her brother received an answer to his telegraph.  The wire to Texas was an informative update only and did not require them to wait for an answer.

       Sitting in the telegraph office waiting for a reply from Wyoming, Paula took out a prosaic piece of knitting and began to work on it.  Paul watched her for a few moments, then drew a deep breath.  “Paula,” he began, “we need to have a talk.  A long talk.”

       “I know that,” she responded, her head bent over her knitting—an excuse, Paul thought, to avoid meeting his eyes, since he knew she didn’t need to look at the sock she was working on.  Still not looking up, she said, “I know what you’re concerned about.  You have a right to be, and to ask as many questions as you wish, but I should like to explain some things to you first, or at least try to do so, without fear of interruption—from you or from the telegrapher.  We shall wait, if you don’t mind.”  Perforce, they waited in silence.

       The reply from Porterville came through in a very few minutes time.  The telegrapher handed them the yellow form, with the name of Lom Trevors clearly displayed as the sender.

      

>                  PORTERVILLE WYO            1015AM         NOV 5 1880
> 
> PAUL A WELLINGTON
> 
>                  COLORADO SPRINGS COLO
> 
> DELIGHTED TO PROVIDE REFERENCE FOR SMITH AND JONES STOP THEY HAVE WORKED FOR ME OVER PAST YEAR ON CONFIDENTIAL TASKS STOP HAVE HANDLED AND TRANSPORTED LARGE SUMS STOP JONES ALSO WORKED AS BANK GUARD HERE LATE 1879 STOP COMPLETELY RELIABLE STOP YOURS FAITHFULLY
> 
>                  LOM TREVORS SHERIFF
> 
>                                      1012AM   

       Reading this remarkable missive, Paula quickly added the name of Sheriff Lom Trevors to her Texas message, paid for it to be sent, and walked out to her horse, her brother following in a somewhat astonished silence.  The Wyoming sheriff’s telegraph had raised more questions than it answered.  It was perfectly straightforward, until one recollected that Smith was Hannibal Heyes, and Jones was presumably Kid Curry.  Did Trevors know that?  He might well do so, which would indicate that he was protecting them, or at least helping them in their evident intention of going straight.  He had certainly provided them with a glowing recommendation, together with at least one detail—the bank guard job—which could be verified independently.  Not that they needed to verify it now, of course—the mention of it in the message all but guaranteed that the Porterville banker would be able to confirm the job if asked.  Yet the Heyes and Curry wanted posters had been displayed, though not in a prominent place, on the bulletin board in the sheriff’s office:  obviously, they were still wanted by the law even if they were no longer actively committing crimes and the Colorado Springs sheriff had no real expectation of seeing them in his jurisdiction.

       On the way back to their camp, Paul said quietly, “All right.  That message from Wyoming was reassuring.”  Paula nodded.  “But I remember how you acted after Heyes and his gang stopped our train two years ago.  You hardly said anything for days.  When I asked what was wrong, you admitted to me that you had been thinking about Hannibal Heyes, a man with whom you had never spoken, and whom you had seen for only a few minutes alongside a railroad track in Wyoming.  The chances were very high that we would never see him again.  You knew that.”  She nodded again.  “You agreed that any further interaction with him would, in fact, be quite undesirable.  After that, you changed—you were quieter, and much less willing to engage in social interaction with respectable men in the Estes Park area, or even in Boulder, when we went down there to church.  And you continued, as you’ve done since we left Scotland, to refuse every offer of marriage you received.  In the bank on Monday, you were so distracted—by seeing him again, I presume—that you dropped your guard and nearly got us in a lot of trouble.”  Paul paused, to see if she had any response, but she said nothing.  “You’re my sister.  Naturally I’m concerned for your safety—for your future.  I’d like some kind of explanation.”

       “I’ll do my best,” she replied in a low voice, “but I’m not sure you’ll understand, because I don’t understand it myself.  Please just listen.”  She took a deep breath, gathering her thoughts.  He remained obediently silent.

       “Everything you’ve just said about that 1878 train robbery is true.  But that day—I could _not_ understand it, which is why I’ve never tried to speak of it to you … you know that verse from the Song of Songs[2], ‘I found him whom my soul loveth’?”  She smiled at the stunned look on her brother’s face.  “That’s what I felt like had happened.  It didn’t matter that I didn’t know him, that I hadn’t spoken to him, and that he was at that very moment engaged in holding up a train.  There was something that drew my attention, I’m not sure what.  It may have been something to do with the extreme pains he took to ensure the safety and comfort of the train passengers during that hold-up.  I prayed about it all the way back to the ranch.  Given that I was unlikely to see him again, and that if I did, there wasn’t much hope that any kind of friendship would develop, because he was a wanted outlaw, I started asking the Lord what it was He might be trying to say to me.  I prayed desperately for an answer of some kind.  The only thought that kept coming into my head, about Heyes, was that now it was he or no one.”

       She looked up and met her brother’s gaze, his blue eyes full of concern now.  “Since the obvious answer to that was ‘no one,’ I put him out of my mind, and went on about the business of running our ranch and looking after that year’s foals.  I did discuss it with Ellen, of course.  And she told me something odd.  She said she’d had a ‘seeing’—you know she has the ‘sight,’ as her father did—but she refused to tell me what it was about, except to say that it was nothing bad.  And she said she would pray.”

       Paul said, remembering, “You put your hope chest away.  You asked the Ramsay boys to carry it upstairs.”

       “Yes.  There was nothing further I could do, except to watch the newspapers and follow his activities, as it were.”  She smiled faintly at the shock on her brother’s face.  “About a year ago, they stopped printing anything about Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry.  I thought he—they—might be dead.  It never occurred to me that they might have gone straight, as they apparently have done.  So you may imagine my shock when I saw Heyes in the bank this past Monday.  And then you offered him and his partner a job which will lead to our getting to know them over the course of a three-week ride, and they accepted it.  They’re doing a pretty good job so far, too.”  She looked over at her brother again, noticing the concern and lack of comprehension in his expression.  “I haven’t an idea what that means.  I only know that the Lord has brought him back into my life when I never expected to see him again.  That strange … attraction, a connection of some kind … is still there, as strong as ever, and I still don’t understand it.  I don’t know what else to tell you.”

       “You’re not planning to do anything foolish?” asked Paul, reflecting that was a stupid question on the face of it, considering what she had already admitted to having done.  “Such as running off with him, becoming his mistress, or anything of that nature?”  _I shouldn’t even have to ask that.  It’s to insult her for no reason._

       “No, certainly not, even if he were to suggest such a thing, and I have no reason to suppose he would do.  I’m not even sure he likes me out of the ordinary.  But you know what our mother always said—well, she said it often enough to me, anyway.  You’re a man, so perhaps she put it to you differently.  ‘Never even think about becoming entangled with a man,’ she told me, ‘however attractive or nicely behaved he may be … don’t let him do more than dance with you once in an evening, or see you home from an encounter in the park, unless you have thought seriously whether he is the sort of man from whom you could accept an offer.  If he is not that kind of man, then do not begin.’  That would be true, she urged me to remember, even if the man had no thought of offering marriage and the topic had never been raised.  It’s still something a Christian girl is obliged to think about.  It’s dishonest to encourage a gentleman with a flirtation if one has no serious intentions—at least, that’s the way she explained it to me.”

       “Yes, she said something similar to me, though Papa had more to say about a man’s responsibilities in the case of a … well, a romantic entanglement.  So you’re saying you’ve thought about that problem?  About ‘encouraging him,’ for lack of a better expression?  And what have you decided?”

       “I think the Lord has something in mind, even though He has not allowed me to understand it yet.  Why, otherwise, would we see Heyes again, when nothing could have been more unlikely?  Perhaps it’s not up to me to decide anything just now.  I suppose, if a ‘romantic entanglement’ should begin to develop, I … I can’t just close my eyes to it, or walk away as though I had no feelings in the matter.”  Even now she could not quite bring herself to speak more openly.  The habit of reserve, developed through years of loneliness, was too strong.  She could not even confide in her twin.  She stretched out her free hand to touch her brother’s arm.  “You have to promise me you won’t interfere, that you won’t say anything to Heyes, I mean.  Promise me!”

       “I can’t promise not to interfere,” Paul replied slowly, “but I promise you I won’t say anything to him about what you’ve just said to me, unless you tell me I may.  You have my word.”  _Did she just admit to me that she was attracted, to this charming but ineligible outlaw whom we hardly know?  Best not to ask, I suppose_.  “And I shan’t do or say anything to discourage him from getting to know you, as long as he behaves in a reasonably gentlemanly manner.  That’s all I can promise.  I’ll discourage him quickly enough if he tries to harm you, not that I think he will.  He seems, from what little I have seen so far, to be a good man, with the usual extraordinary courtesy towards[3] women that one sees here in the West where women are scarce.”  He chuckled.  “I won’t even tell him that we know his real name, though I suppose we shall have to tell them before we cross the border into Texas.  It’s not fair to them not to let them know that we’re taking the money to a Texas Ranger office, even though they’re not wanted in Texas, as I recall, assuming that’s Kid Curry with him.”

       “They’re not,” said Paula with certainty.  She had taken the trouble to verify that on their previous two visits to Texas in the winters of 1878 and 1879.  “And you know what Captain Parmalee has always told us about that.  Unless a man’s wanted on a capital offense, or he’s in Texas causing trouble, the Rangers have better things to do than to waste their time chasing down outlaws wanted in some other jurisdiction.  Then—could we put off telling them as long as we can?”

       “Go all the way south through New Mexico, almost to the Mexican border, before turning east, you mean?  It will add an extra day to the trip, but I don’t see why not.”  Paul suddenly felt a rush of tenderness for his twin sister, both of them bereft of their mother at the age of sixteen, and losing their father two years later.  They were all the family each other had now except for a few cousins in England and Scotland, even though he knew that Paula was fairly close to Ellen Ramsay, their former nurse, who had immigrated with them and was now a combination chaperone and housekeeper at their Estes Park ranch. 

       He thought fleetingly of the red-haired girl left behind in Scotland nine years ago, and put her firmly from his mind.  That was in the past.  She was probably married by now, with half a dozen children. 

       If God really had some earth-shaking plan in mind for his sister, the last thing he wanted was to try to keep her from finding happiness with the man of the Lord’s choosing, however unbelievable the Lord’s choice might appear to be.  The loss of their parents had affected her much more strongly, he sometimes thought, than it had him.  He touched her hand.  “I’ll pray for you, and for Mr. Heyes, too, of course.”

       She smiled.  “I appreciate that.  But … perhaps you should just pray that the Lord will do the best thing, whether I understand it or not, and that I shall be able to trust Him to bring to pass whatever He has planned, in the right way, at the right time.”  She pushed the stallion into a canter with a gentle touch of her heels, indicating that her confidences were temporarily at an end.

***   ***   ***

       Kid Curry yawned again, widely enough that he could feel his jaw crack.  Heyes had let him sleep almost two hours before waking him to take his turn on watch, but he was still tired from the previous night.  He walked over and fed the fire to boil up the left-over coffee, not that the three cups he’d drunk at breakfast had kept him awake earlier. 

       Stroking his moustache, he was struck by a sudden desire to get rid of it—to stop thinking about Danny Bilson for good.  It was over.  Both Danny and the old man whose death Kid had avenged were dead and gone.  The moustache didn’t really serve a purpose now.  Besides, he had been thinking seriously about writing to Lillian O’More, the young restaurant owner in Telluride who had helped Heyes to save his life less than two months ago.  He had been wearing the moustache at that time, but he wondered if she might prefer seeing him without it—whenever he was able to return to her as he had promised.  If he ever told her the reason he’d started wearing it, he was _sure_ she’d prefer him without it.  He knew, somehow, that she wouldn’t want him to be burdened with the memory of Danny Bilson any more than he had to be.  He put water in a separate pot on the fire to boil and went to extract his shaving kit from his saddlebag.

       Sitting up, Heyes realized he’d slept a good two hours.  The sun was already far up the sky—it must be after eleven o’clock, he estimated without bothering to check his watch.  Then he saw his partner’s face.  Something was missing.  “Hey, that’s good to see,” he commented.  “I wondered when you were going to shave it off.”

       “I thought it was time,” responded Kid laconically.  He added a little more fuel to the fire.  “Think we should fix something to eat?  They left all the food with us, so there’s plenty.”

       “I’ll just have some coffee and another one of those biscuits, if you haven’t eaten them all,” Heyes replied. 

       His partner grinned, tossed him a biscuit, and began adding fuel to the fire to make fresh coffee.  Before the water boiled, they heard the sound of horses’ hooves striking rock, and looked up to see the Wellington twins returning.

       Paula dismounted and extracted a parcel wrapped in grease-proof paper from her saddlebag.  “I hope this isn’t crushed.  We brought you gentlemen some peach pie that the café had left over from last night.”  She unwrapped the package on the flat top of a rock.  The pie looked to be in reasonably good condition, and Heyes and Kid accepted it with enthusiasm.  “Don’t eat it all this minute,” Paula admonished them.  “I’m going to cook up something hot for lunch.  I don’t know about you, but I’m so tired from last night that I’d rather just stay where we are for today.  We have water and fuel here, and with those men in jail, we might even have a peaceful night.”

       “Any trouble here?” Wellington asked.

       “No, not at all,” Heyes answered.  “We each got some sleep, and at least one of us had an eye on those saddlebags every minute.  No one came around, nothing happened.  Did you get those boys turned over to the sheriff all right?”

       “Yes.”  Wellington was looking with some curiosity at Jones.  Without his moustache, he looked much younger, and, Paul realized, there was no doubt at all now that this was Kid Curry.  He remembered the gunfighter perfectly from the 1878 hold-up.  “We gave him signed statements and two different addresses where we could be reached if needed.  I think, this time, they’ll be able to charge those men with armed robbery, and make it stick.  We shouldn’t have any more trouble with them.” 

       He smiled at Heyes, determined, for his sister’s sake, to get to know him a little better, without making any preconceived judgments as to his character.  A Highland Scot, as their mother had been and as she had tried to raise them to be, though their father was English, should be the last person to assume that a man was lacking in good qualities simply because he had ended up on the wrong side of the law and had a price on his head.  Some of their own Campbell ancestors, who had taken the Jacobite side in the ‘Forty-Five’,[4] had been obliged to take to the heather, as the saying went.  For a Scot, a man’s being on the run from the law was rather a good recommendation than otherwise, all other things being equal.  “You’ve already earned your bonus, gentlemen, and we thank you.”

       “No problem,” returned Kid.  “There may not be more trouble with that bunch, but that doesn’t mean we can relax.  We’ll just keep a careful lookout as usual.” 

      

      

* * *

[1] As opposed to paper money printed by a local bank, which was legal tender, though not quite as secure in value, depending as it did upon the solvency of the bank that had printed it.

[2] The older name used in all English-language versions at this date for the Biblical book now usually called The Song of Solomon.  The reference is to chapter three, verse four, in the Authorized (King James) Version of 1611.

[3] The British were just beginning to prefer the form “towards,” with an S on the end of that and similar words, while Americans continued to use the older English form, plain to be seen in the Authorized Version of the English Bible, without a final S.

[4] There were Campbells fighting on both sides in the 1745 Rising, mounted to support Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s claim to the British throne.


	3. Ambush in Ratón Pass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What should have been a peaceful ride over the pass into New Mexico suddenly turns deadly, and Heyes and Curry receive an unwelcome surprise.

**Sunday, November 7th** **, 1880**

The four were riding in two pairs, following the portions of the Santa Fe Trail wagon road still visible where the tracks had not been laid directly over the old trail:  Heyes and Curry ahead, Paula and her brother and the pack horse behind, as they began the descent from the crown of Ratón Pass between Trinidad, Colorado and the small rail stop settlement of Ratón, New Mexico Territory, near which they intended to spend the night.  Heyes had complained once, jokingly, about the strangeness of riding within easy distance of the newly constructed rail route over the pass, only completed earlier that year, but he had unhesitatingly agreed with the Wellingtons’ original decision to ride the whole way to Laredo on horseback, camping on the trail at night and avoiding major towns except for brief visits in the daytime to replenish supplies.  _They’re right, of course_ , he thought.   _Riding and camping out makes it a lot easier to protect the cash we’re carrying than taking the train and staying in hotels.  We can see any attacker coming and take precautions_. 

       Aloud, he commented, “It isn’t really the best time of year for camping out under the stars, is it?  The weather’s been good so far, but we’ve still got mountains ahead of us in New Mexico.  We could run into snow any time now, in the high country.”

       Kid nodded.  “Don’t remind me.”  He turned his head to explain.  “We were doing some placer mining one summer, up in the mountains, and we kept thinking we’d stay just a few more days.  Then one morning we could barely get the cabin door open—had to shovel our way through a four-foot drift just to get to the horses.”

       “So you spent the winter there, perforce.”  Wellington looked ahead, shading his eyes against the sun.  “We’ve had a few times like that up in the Estes Park area.  But the weather is charming at present, with warm sunlight and blue skies.  We could stop for luncheon anywhere along here.”

       “Sure,” said Heyes.  “We’ll push on ahead a bit and see if we can find a good place.”  He pressed his heels into his horse’s sides, urging the big claybank dun into a trot.  His partner’s black bay kept pace with him, opening up some space between them and the pair behind.

       Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a movement at the top of the limestone bluff immediately to their right—a confused impression of a man’s silhouette and an enormous boulder starting to move above him.  At the same moment, he heard Miss Wellington call out a desperate warning.  “Heyes!  Look out!”

Limestone outcropping on the north side of Ratón Pass, late autumn (photo by author)

       The two outlaws bent low over their saddle horns as their horses, frightened by the huge falling rock, sprang forward at a gallop.  Behind them they heard a crash and a rattle of small stones as the boulder struck the ground where they had just been.  Almost immediately a sharp bend in the road, as it curved around the foot of the limestone outcropping, obscured their view of the other half of the party. 

       Heyes drew his gun; glancing over at his partner, he saw that Kid had done the same.  By common consent, they slowed their horses and began looking for a way up to the top of the bluff.  Kid saw what looked like a faint trail, easily negotiable on horseback, and led the way.  The pair scrambled up the slope to the top and slipped off their horses.  Keeping their guns out and ready, they advanced up a slight slope to the south, toward the edge of the bluff. 

       Seeing no one, Kid quietly de-cocked his revolver and holstered it, Heyes following suit.  Carefully they examined the ground.  There were clear signs of two men and two horses.  Heyes’s jaw set grimly as he saw equally clear evidence that a boulder had been levered out of its bed and deliberately pushed over the edge of the cliff.  _An ambush.  But why?  If they were after the money, it seems kind of a clumsy way to go about it._   He said as much to his partner.

       “Heyes,” Kid responded grimly, “never mind about that.  Did you hear what she yelled to you?”

       “I heard it.”  Heyes had been trying not to think about that, concentrating on finding out more about who had ambushed them. 

       “There’s a chance they don’t know who I am, or that he doesn’t know and she does.  You think we should just keep riding?”

       “And ride off without collecting our pay?” replied Heyes with a whimsical smile.  “Or leave the job unfinished, when the fellows who planned this ambush might come back?”  He frowned.  “I suppose we should ride on, at that.”

       Kid had dropped to a prone position and crept up to the edge of the cliff so he could see what was happening below without being silhouetted against the sky.  What he saw made him turn back quickly to his partner.  “Heyes!” he called softly.  “Look at this!”

       Crawling up to join him, Heyes peered over the edge.  Paul Wellington was lying motionless in the road, with his sister kneeling beside him, pressing his hastily unknotted bandana to his forehead.  Even from this distance, they could see the bright blood on the kerchief.  The three horses were standing quietly, ground-tied, as they had been taught to do.

       The partners slipped back down the slope until they could stand up without being seen from below.  Even though Miss Wellington’s attention was taken up with treating the wound, they knew she carried a gun.  She would be nervous and distraught, and they didn’t want to get shot by mistake.

       “Kid, we can’t ride away now.  We’ve gotta help them.”  Heyes took in his partner’s sceptical expression.  “I know—they know who I am.  It’s risky.  But I’m not gonna leave her in this mess.  Her brother could be dead.”  He swung into the saddle and started back down the slope.

       In spite of the tension which gripped him, Kid Curry smiled a little at his partner’s unconscious change from “them” to “her.”  He had noticed Heyes paying the lady an increasing amount of attention over the past several days as they rode south, and it appeared that the attraction was mutual.  He mounted up and followed.  “He’s not dead.  She was trying to stop the bleeding.  Dead men don’t bleed like that.  Quit worryin’.”

       Dismounting a few feet away from the injured man, Heyes said over his shoulder to Kid, “Cover me.”  He went over and knelt beside their employer.  “How is he?”

       Miss Wellington, kneeling on the other side, looked up sharply, meeting his eyes for a moment before closing her own and bowing her head briefly.  “Oh, thank God,” she whispered before looking up again.  “I thought we might have seen the last of you.  It’s not bad, as far as I can tell,” she continued, looking back down at the open wound on the right side of Paul’s forehead.  “I think it’s just a long, deep slice.  I couldn’t find any other injuries, but I haven’t really taken time to look, because I’ve been trying to stop the bleeding on this one—scalp wounds do bleed a lot.  He was only unconscious for a few seconds before coming round, but I think he’s passed out again.”

       “Hit by a rock chip, probably,” said Heyes.  “That’s going to need stitches.  Did you check for a skull fracture?”

       “Not yet.”

       Heyes slipped his left glove off and began feeling gently around the wound for signs of a break in the skull.  His touch, gentle as it was, caused the injured man to open his eyes and say, in a confused voice, “What…?”

       “It’s going to be all right, Paul,” his sister assured him.  “Heyes and Curry have come back to help us.”

       “Damn!” exclaimed Kid Curry, almost under his breath.  At least, Heyes hoped he was the only one to have heard his partner’s expression of dismay. 

       “Just lie quiet, Mr. Wellington,” he said.  “I’m checking to see if there are any skull fractures.  You got hit in the head by a chunk of rock.”  Miss Wellington marvelled at the outlaw’s calm, soothing, voice, knowing that he was likely to still be very much on edge after the unpleasant surprise she had given him.

       Heyes finished his investigation.  “I can’t find any sign of a break.  Were you hurt anywhere else?”

       “Not that I know of,” Paul replied.  Accepting, with aplomb, Paula’s use of the outlaws’ true names, he added, “We’re grateful for your help, Mr. Heyes.”  He paused and struggled to sit up.  “And yours, Mr. Curry.  Thank you.”  Startled, Kid touched his hat with one finger in acknowledgement.  Paul tried to push away the hands obliging him to lie flat.  “I’m all right.  Let me up.”

       “No, we need to get that bandaged, or it will start bleeding again,” said Heyes firmly.  To Miss Wellington, he added, “We’re going to need more cloths than what we have here, and something to disinfect the wound.”

       “There’s a kit in Paul’s saddlebag—cloths, scissors, adhesive tape and bandages [1], a small flask of brandy,” replied Paula.

       “I’ll get it.”  Heyes rose to his feet and walked over to the twins’ horses.

       “In the left-side saddlebag—a flat wooden box wrapped in oilskin,” she directed.

       Returning with the kit, Heyes competently bandaged the head wound, using a pad of gauze soaked in brandy and held by an adhesive bandage and strips of cloth taped into place, with another strip of cloth tied snugly over the bandage.  “Now, let’s get you over here where you can have your back against the rock.”

       Paul winced as the alcohol stung, but nodded as he was helped to his feet.  “Thank you.  I was beginning to feel quite useless, if a bit decorative, lying there in the middle of the road.  You’re rather good at all this, aren’t you, Mr. Heyes?”

       Heyes smiled wryly, accepting Wellington’s unexpected familiarity with his previous occupation.  “Lots of experience, at least from a few years ago when someone had to bandage up the boys in the gang whenever they got themselves shot up.  Lately, Kid and I’ve been able to get to a doctor when we needed patching up.  I’ve never seen those adhesive bandages before, though.  There were times when they would have been real handy.”

       They assisted Paul to the side of the road and eased him down against the rock wall below the limestone bluff.  Kid shifted his position so he could continue to keep an eye on both of the twins, especially on their left hands—both were left-handed, he had noticed—and their positions relative to Heyes.  He was not feeling quite so uneasy now, but Heyes had asked for cover and that was what Kid intended to give him.

       “I’ll get the horses,” said Miss Wellington.  She had not missed the wariness in Curry’s attitude, and thought it would probably be better to let both outlaws know before she made any sudden movements, at least until they could reach some kind of new understanding with them.

       Kid picked up the pack horse’s lead rope while Paula gathered up the reins of both saddle horses and Heyes squatted on his heels to repack the medical kit into its box.  Rotating the two hook latches into place, he took the box over to Paul’s grey gelding, now lowering his head to graze at the side of the road.

       Flipping the top flap of the saddlebag back, Heyes replaced the kit where he had found it, on edge up against the leather surface of the bag’s interior, on the side next to the horse’s flank.  The box would not slide in easily, and he repositioned it and tried again.  It seemed to be catching on something.  He slipped his right hand behind the box and succeeded in slipping it into place.  As he drew his hand out, it brushed against the obstruction which had been preventing the kit from settling properly—a soft leather flap hand-sewn to the inside of the saddlebag, protecting a small flat pouch sewn beneath it.  Under the flap, he caught a glimpse of something silver in color, with a rounded upper edge.  The object was too large to be a silver dollar, and why would anyone keep a silver dollar in a special pouch, anyway? 

       Heyes couldn’t help it—his curiosity got the better of him.  He raised the small flap and slipped his hand under the metal object, pulling it out to expose it to view.  Looking down to see what he had uncovered, he froze on a sudden intake of breath, feeling himself go cold all over with shock.  In his palm lay a silver circle with the sunlight glinting off the five-pointed Lone Star in its centre, the words ‘Texas Ranger’ plain to be seen on its surface.[2]

Texas Ranger badge, 1880

       His mind scurried frantically from one appalling thought to another:  the Wellingtons hiring him and his partner to escort them and the money all the way to Laredo; their crossing into Texas—and into Ranger jurisdiction—possibly in as little as another week.  He and Kid could have been arrested before they had any idea of their danger.  _No, that can’t be_ , he thought.  _I know she’s attracted to me.  I couldn’t be mistaken about that.  She wouldn’t lend herself to something like this._   Then he remembered Grace Turner, who had apparently been genuinely attracted to Kid, and yet had inveigled him all the way to the United States, where she had turned him over to a waiting law officer for the reward, looking tenderly into her victim’s face as he was disarmed and his hands were secured behind him, and telling him that she had ‘fallen in love’ with him.  Heyes shivered.  Miss Wellington wasn’t a bit like Mrs. Turner, though—or was she?

       A few feet away, Kid Curry saw the shock and alarm on his partner’s face, and crossed the distance between them in three strides. 

       Numbly, Heyes spread his fingers to display the Ranger badge before putting it back into the pouch.  His thoughts, usually so nimble, felt like wagon wheels slipping uselessly in mud.  He couldn’t make himself believe that this nice British brother and sister had offered them a job in order to lead them into a trap, but it sure looked that way.

       Kid spun around on his heel to face Wellington, sitting against the rock wall, and his sister, standing nearby.  This new danger, coming so soon on the heels of what he had experienced at the hands of Jim Caldwell and his gang in Telluride less than a month earlier, stretched his overwrought nerves to the breaking point.  He didn’t know what Heyes planned to do next, but he knew what he had to do:  keep an eye on Wellington—on the Texas Ranger—and be ready to keep himself and his partner from capture by drawing his gun or whatever else proved to be necessary.

       His attention caught by Kid’s sudden movement, Paul glanced up.  He took in the gunfighter’s pose:  hands loose at his sides, the right hand less than an inch from the butt of his gun, while every muscle in his body appeared deceptively relaxed.  Curry’s eyes, as cold as the blue-grey sea water they resembled, were fixed on him, watching for any sudden move.  Paul didn’t know what had caused the outlaw to go on the alert, but he realized that he and his sister might be in considerable danger unless he could think of some way to defuse the situation.  Heyes and Curry had been extraordinarily courteous during the train robbery two years ago, and did not have a reputation for violence; they also were going straight now, by all indications, but they were still wanted, dead or alive, with huge rewards on their heads, and Kid Curry had a known reputation as a fast draw.  What they would do to protect themselves in this situation was anyone’s guess. 

       Speaking softly, in the low, soothing tone he would use with a frightened horse, Paul said, “Easy, now.  Take it easy.  No one’s going to do anything you don’t like.  Easy …”

       Whatever Kid might have expected, being addressed as though he were a horse was not it.  He almost laughed, and an unwilling smile hovered on Heyes’s lips.  _After all, the man is a horse rancher.  I suppose it’s reasonable that he’d talk to Kid that way under these circumstances.  He’s clearly been around gunfighters before and knows what he’s facing.  I’d almost think he’s a little scared.  Well, if he is,_ Heyes thought, _he’s not the only one.  So are we_.

       “I think it would be more comfortable for everyone if you were to take our guns.”  Paul looked from Heyes to Kid and back.  “Temporarily, of course,” he murmured with a touch of humor, reminding Heyes irresistibly of Cedric Seymour, the remittance man to whom he had been indentured at the age of sixteen.  He, too, had resorted to humor and understatement when he was nervous.  Heyes wondered if that was characteristic of Englishmen of a certain type.

       Now, however, he had a different problem to grapple with.  In the back of his mind, he recognized the wisdom of what Wellington was proposing, but he hadn’t expected to be put in the position of confiscating guns from this friendly, harmless-seeming pair who had been kind enough to give them a very well-paying job.  It was almost as though Wellington thought they were being held up.

       Heyes knew he couldn’t let that impression stand.  “We aren’t going to rob you, or do you any harm,” he assured them.

       “I’m quite aware of that.  But you’d best disarm us now, before someone gets hurt by mistake.  Your partner is very much on edge, and I don’t want to provoke any accidents.”  As neither of the outlaws moved, Paul continued, “You can come and take mine out of the holster, Mr. Heyes, or tell me what you want me to do with it.”  Still wondering what had set Curry off, he glanced up at his sister, standing motionless beside him. 

       Paula had been watching Heyes closely and had seen most of what had happened.  She said quietly, “I think they saw your Ranger badge.”

       “Oh.”  Paul closed his eyes briefly.  That was the last thing they needed to have happen right now.  “Well, they were going to know sooner or later.  Now is as good a time as any to talk it out with them.  I only wish that I hadn’t such a frightful headache.”

       Heyes came forward, bent down, and drew Wellington’s revolver from its holster, stowing it in the left-hand pocket of his heavy winter coat.  Then he turned to look at the lady.

       She said soberly, “Mine’s in its special pocket in my skirt.”

       His eyes resting on the curve of her figure outlined by the neatly tailored split riding skirt, Heyes could just distinguish the top edges of the reinforced pocket tailored into one of the seams.  For about three seconds, he tried to imagine himself putting his hand into her skirt pocket to retrieve the pistol.  He decided to try his best charming smile instead, thankful that he had never been faced with the necessity of disarming a woman with his own hands.  “Why don’t you take it out and hand it to me?”

       Paula carefully drew out the gun without touching the hammer, the trigger, or the guard, gripped it by the barrel with her right hand, and extended it, butt first, to Heyes, who took it with a word of thanks and carried it over to his partner.

       Taking the proffered gun, Kid glanced down in surprise at the way it balanced sweetly in his hand.  This pistol had been conditioned and balanced by an expert gunsmith, and subsequently cared for by someone who knew how to use it.  It was also a thing of beauty, he realized, with its nickel plating and custom grips made of some dark wood, possibly ebony.  It was a large-calibre 1873 Colt Peacemaker, like his own, but there were subtle differences.  He was lost in appreciation of the fine weapon and forgot, for just a moment, to be angry or nervous.

       Watching, Miss Wellington offered, “It’s a forty-four—a ‘Frontier Six Shooter,’ Mr. Curry.  You’d have to carry two different calibres of ammunition if you were planning to keep it.”

       That threw Kid off his balance, as she had intended.  “We don’t—I don’t steal guns from …”  He stopped.  “I’ll give it back later!” he finished awkwardly, trying to hide the fact that, for just a moment, he had contemplated making her a good offer to buy the pistol, though certainly not to steal it.

       Paul looked up at his sister.  “Did you give him your derringer?”

       “Oh,” she said.  “I forgot.  It’s in an inner pocket on the lower right side of my bodice,” she said to Heyes.

       Smiling, Heyes held out his hand.  He wasn’t even going to think about searching her for a gun in that location.  She withdrew the derringer, a little snub-nosed double-barrelled .32 calibre, also nickel-plated, and held it out flat on her palm.  He put it into his other coat pocket.  “Is that all?”

       “Those are all of our guns except the rifles on our saddles,” replied Paula. 

       Heyes nodded, deciding he’d better take control.  “We’ve got a lot to discuss, and we need to get you to a doctor, if there is one in Ratón, but first I’d like to get a fire built and get something warm into you,” he said briskly to Paul.  “Maybe you could make up some broth for him from the dried meat,” he added, looking at Miss Wellington.  She nodded.  “Come to think of it, we could do with some coffee ourselves.  Kid and I’ll get wood and get the fire started, after we unload those rifles.”

       “Something warm would be most welcome,” replied Paul, “only please don’t insist on my drinking coffee.  I’m feeling rather unwell as it is, and that vile concoction would make things worse.”  He smiled ruefully.  “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean that it was unfit to drink.  I’m sure you find it delightful.  Paula can make tea for the two of us.”

       _Another thing he has in common with Seymour_ , Heyes realized.  _Neither of them can stand the taste of coffee_.  He hadn’t thought of his former mentor, now dead, in years, but Wellington kept saying things that brought back old memories.  By all appearances, though, Wellington was a good deal more honest than the remittance man turned confidence artist and card sharp had been, in spite of this matter of the Texas Ranger badge, which they still had to talk about.

Winchester .44-40 cartridge, also able to chamber in the Frontier Colt .44-40

       Kid was quickly emptying the tubular magazines of the two Winchesters and removing the live rounds from the chambers.  He put the loose rounds in the pocket of his sheepskin coat and replaced the rifles in the saddle scabbards, then, feeling like he could finally relax a little, he went to help Heyes gather wood.  “You weren’t askin’ the right questions, Heyes.”

       “Huh?  What about?”

       “About whether they were carrying any other weapons.  And then she was real careful to tell you that you had all of their guns.  She didn’t say nothin’ about anything else.”

       “You think she has something else?”

       Kid smiled faintly.  “Nice little frog-sticker, about the length of my hand, with a hilt made out of the same wood as the grips of her revolver.  I saw it when she was cuttin’ up potatoes the other night.  Saw her put it back in its sheath, too.”

       Heyes looked surreptitiously over toward the slender young woman in her tightly tailored bodice and skirt as she busied herself with the food preparations.  “Where?  Where could she possibly keep it?”

       “Same place you told me that Lillian put my gun after she took it from that fellow.”  Kid tapped the centre of his chest with a finger, flushing slightly.  “She must have a sheath for it there, inside her bodice.”

       “Oh.”  Heyes swallowed.

       “It’s no danger to us unless somebody gets too close or tries somethin’ she don’t like.  So watch yourself, all right?”

       Heyes chose not to reply to that remark:  deliberately provocative, he suspected.  His partner continued, “What’s this about ‘ _We_ need to get you to a doctor’?  You weren’t planning to go with them any further, were you?  They’ll be all right now that he’s got his head bandaged.”

       “I’m going with them into Ratón.  You can stay outside of town and meet me somewhere, if you want.”

       Kid gave him an exasperated look.  “No, if you’re going, so am I.  I’m startin’ to think you need looking after.”

       Heyes snorted with disdain.

      

       After they had all had some food and were finishing up their tea and coffee, Kid said, with an edge of bitterness in his voice, “I just have one question, Mr. Wellington.  When were you planning to tell us?  Before we got into Texas, or after?”

       Paula started to say something, but her brother interrupted.  “It wasn’t like that at all, Mr. Curry.  It’s rather a long story, I fear, but we really were not trying to decoy you into Texas so we could arrest you.”

       “It’s happened to me before,” said Kid, and fell silent.  After a moment, he added, “I’d like to hear that story.  We’ve got time.” 

       “It’s a trifle embarrassing for me,” said Paul, hesitating.  After five years of working with the Texas Rangers, albeit only part of each year, he still wasn’t proud of having failed to recognize either of these men when he first saw them.

       “I saw both of you in the lobby of the First National Bank, and I recognized you, Heyes,”  Paula took up the tale.  She knew she ought to keep things formal and call him ‘Mr. Heyes,’ but it seemed so natural to call him what she had heard his colleagues call him, two years ago, and thought she’d heard his partner say only a few days earlier.  Presumably he’d tell her if he objected.  “It didn’t occur to me until later that Paul had never really had a close look at you during that train robbery.  So you see, when he offered the two of you a job escorting us and the money to Texas, he wasn’t thinking that you were a pair of wanted outlaws, or about anything except getting the help he had realized we were going to need.”  She saw that Heyes was about to speak, and held up one hand briefly.  “Later the same evening, I told him that he had just hired Hannibal Heyes and, if his partner was the same man known to be riding with him in Wyoming two years ago, probably Kid Curry.”

       “And we agreed,” Wellington resumed, “that in view of the references you’d given us—a sheriff and a banker in Wyoming—and your peaceable behaviour in the First National Bank, and your competent assistance in the matter of those men who tried to seize the money in the street, and your acceptance of the job offer for the comparatively small remuneration we had offered …”

       “Six hundred dollars for a three-week trip, plus a four-hundred dollar bonus for dealing with trouble, isn’t exactly small,” murmured Heyes.

       “It was fairly obvious you were no longer robbing banks and trains, and I was not sorry to have you along.  It certainly wasn’t premeditated with the intention of entrapping you,” Wellington finished.

       Kid accepted this, perforce, but realized that his question still hadn’t really been answered.  He resolved to ask again later, perhaps not quite so cynically.

       Barely able to contain his impatience, Heyes broke in.  “What train robbery?  Is that how you recognized me?  And if it was a train robbery years ago, how come you remembered me, but not the Kid?  I can’t think of one that I planned that he wasn’t along for.”

       _Paula’s turn to be embarrassed_ , her brother thought.  _I’d better deal with this_.  “Ah.  Do you remember the total solar eclipse at the end of July 1878?”

Harper's Weekly with the 1878 eclipse at Rawlins, Wyoming as the cover story

       Heyes and Kid both nodded.  Heyes said, in a tone still tinged with awe from his memories of that day, “I don’t think I could ever forget it!”

       Jerking his thumb at Heyes, Kid said, “He told us our grandkids wouldn’t live to see that happen again, and rescheduled the hold-up so the whole gang could see it while we waited for the train to come along.  Heyes figured the train would be late if we planned to hit it east of Rawlins, because the engineer would probably stop so everyone could see the eclipse, and he was right.”  He paused, memory starting to return.  “You were on that train?”

       Chuckling at this ingenuous recital, Paul assented.  “The train stopped just east of Rawlins so we could all watch, just as you said, and you gentlemen came along less than an hour after we started again.  I heard you—” he paused to try to keep his face straight “—actually shout ‘stand and deliver’ to the train crew, Mr. Heyes, but I didn’t see you.  I was looking out the window on the other side of the train.  I certainly saw you, Mr. Curry, when you ordered all the passengers off the train, but I didn’t recognize you until you shaved off your moustache a couple of days ago, after we left Colorado Springs.  I assumed Paula was probably right in thinking that Hannibal Heyes’s long-time partner, as the sheriff in Medicine Bow told us you were, was still with him, but I couldn’t have sworn to it.  And she didn’t recognize you because she was looking somewhere else at the time you were courteously assisting the ladies to disembark.  I don’t think she saw you.”  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Paula turn her head away, blushing a little, and said no more.  He remembered the discussions they had engaged in after the 1878 train robbery and again after taking the would-be robbers to the sheriff in Colorado Springs, on this very topic, and sighed.   

       Kid Curry remembered that hold-up and this pair vividly now.  Seeing Heyes looking at him, surprised, he said in a low voice, “Tell you later.”  He resolved to at least get a straight answer to the question he had asked earlier, though the annoying thing about the memories that Wellington had just refreshed for him was that he could not now quite recapture his sense of outrage about the Ranger badge and the possible trap they had walked into.  Parts of what had happened during that hold-up struck him as irresistibly funny, though they had not seemed so at the time.  He turned back to the twins.  “You didn’t answer my question.  I’d still like to know when you were planning to tell us about that badge, and about knowin’ who we were.”

       _Determined, this chap_ , Paul thought.  Aloud, he said, “Paula and I discussed it after she told me whom I had hired.  Since we wanted you gentlemen to stay with us as long as you were willing, and we knew that when we told you the money was being delivered to a Texas Ranger office, you probably would not wish to continue further, we planned to go south all the way to Seven Rivers in New Mexico[3], then turn east, so as to keep west of the Texas border for as long as possible.  Before we crossed into Texas, we intended to pay you for the work you had done up to that point, and then tell you about the connections both of us have with the Rangers so you could make your own decision as to what you wanted to do next.”

       Reluctantly, Kid started to believe him.  Told like that, the story sounded perfectly plausible.

       Heyes had picked on up something that made him wonder if he’d heard correctly.  “Both of you?” he asked.

       “I have one of those badges, too, and a written authorization from the state of Texas,” said Miss Wellington, almost apologetically.  “The Rangers don’t have a Ladies Auxiliary; if they did, I suppose I could be considered to be a member.  I do courier tasks for them, such as this trip, and because I had a governess at one time who was a refugee from a conflict in Spain, I speak Spanish well, so sometimes I go into Mexico on Ranger business.”  She smiled at their expressions.  “Yes, the Rangers have business in Mexico occasionally—it’s just not talked about openly.”

      

       A short time later, while they were getting ready to leave for Ratón, Kid found himself next to his partner while putting the cookware away in the pack.  “All right, I’m sorry.  Maybe I jumped to conclusions too fast.  But I’m just gettin’ real tired of being led into traps—or chased into them.”

       “Yeah,” said Heyes.  “That’s true enough.  I can’t quite explain why, but I don’t think this is a trap, even if it looked like that at the outset.  But what I want to know is why you didn’t recognize them when we first saw them.  If you had warned me, we wouldn’t have taken this job.  You do remember that hold-up, right?  The eclipse makes it easy.  For that matter, why don’t I remember her…?”  He trailed off, unaware that he had gotten his pronouns confused again.

        “Well, I’ll tell you, Heyes.  The answer to your second question is you didn’t see her—at least, I don’t think you did.  You were busy supervising things, dealing with the safe, and setting the dynamite, and when you did come over to where some of the passengers were, so you could wait out the explosion, it was fifteen feet or more from where these two were, down next to the first car along the line.  As for why I didn’t remember them at first—I do now—well …” he hesitated.  “Let’s just say I don’t go out of my way to remember it when a pretty woman walks right past me like I was a tree or something.”

       Heyes stared at him.  “What?”

       “Yeah.  I was standing at the foot of the steps to the first passenger car, offering a hand to the ladies, because of course the conductor wasn’t there to put out that nice little step for them.  She jumped down without any help—didn’t even see my hand—and when I put my hand under her elbow to steady her as she jumped, it was like she didn’t even notice somebody touchin’ her sleeve.  Her brother was just behind her and saw the whole thing, and he thanked me, but I swear she didn’t even realize I was there.”  He grinned at his partner.  “That’s because she was lookin’ at you.  The whole time.  Every move you made, as long as you were in sight from where they were.  Prob’ly had your face memorized by the time we left, as well as your hat and the clothes you were wearin’.  I ain’t surprised she recognized you in the bank.”

       Trying, and failing, to keep a smile off his face, Heyes absorbed this information as best he could.  “Maybe she’d never seen a man as good-lookin’ as me before,” he suggested. 

       Kid made a move to knock his hat off, which he dodged.  “More likely she just thought you were funny-looking.”  _Both of those reasons are wrong_ , he thought.  _The lady is very, very interested.  She was then, and she is now.  I know that, if you don’t, just like you knew before I did, in Telluride, that Lillian was interested in me._ He decided not to say anything to his oblivious partner about that yet.

***   ***   ***

       On the way down to Ratón, riding slowly, Heyes and Kid positioned themselves one on either side of Wellington’s horse in case he started to fall out of the saddle.  It also allowed them to be close enough to interfere if he attempted to reach for a hidden weapon, but they had naturally refrained from saying so aloud.  He seemed to be doing well enough, however, and they soon began to relax their vigilance, at least as far as his well-being was concerned.  Relaxing their vigilance completely was out of the question, of course.  Heyes sometimes wondered how it would feel, if they ever did get their amnesty, just to ride down the street and not have to worry about whether somebody was trying to trap them like a pair of wild animals, arrest them, shoot them, or turn them in for the reward.  He couldn’t quite imagine it.  It seemed like they’d been running forever, even though it had been not much more than a year since they turned their backs on a life of crime that was becoming increasingly untenable, and decided to try to meet the difficult conditions of the amnesty offered them by Governor Hoyt.  They had had no idea how difficult it would be, or maybe they would not have had the courage to try.

       Miss Wellington had been thinking about what Kid had said, when he referred to someone having tried to trap him before.  Somehow, from the tone in his voice and the look he had given her, she deduced that a woman had done that to him.  She wanted to know more.  “Mr. Curry?” she ventured.

       “Ma’am?”  Kid turned in his saddle, touching his hat with a courtesy she realized was deeply engrained into him, but not his partner, oddly enough, though Heyes was perfectly polite.  They also spoke differing varieties of American English, with Kid often using an accent that sounded almost Southern.  Yet they were very obviously quite close, with a friendship of many years standing between them.

       “I was wondering.  You said somebody led you into a trap before.  Who was she?  What did she do?  I’d like to hear about it.” 

       Kid briefly recounted meeting Grace Turner in Mexico, and how she had arranged for the law to be waiting when the stage reached El Paso.  She’d collected the reward, then had apparently thought better of what she’d done, or had felt sorry for him, and had managed to break him out of jail.  He stopped at that point, leaving it to Heyes to tell as much of the rest of the story as he thought wise.

       Heyes was feeling a little more at ease, responding to the obvious sympathy in Miss Wellington’s blue eyes, and took up the tale with somewhat less caution than he normally exercised.  After all, the Wellingtons already knew the most dangerous pieces of information:  their real names, and what they used to do for a living, and the fact that they were still wanted by the law, with rewards offered on their heads.  He almost, but not quite, forgot that there were still some things that he and Kid had been told to keep to themselves. 

       Continuing where Kid had left off, he said, “She didn’t think better about the reward part.  She kept the ten thousand dollars, which put us in kind of a fix.”  He stopped suddenly.  “I mean, with us going straight, we couldn’t have it look like she and Kid planned the whole thing to get hold of the money, which is what our friend Sheriff Trevors told us the gov … people’d be thinking.  So we set out to get it back.”  Briefly he outlined the confidence scheme they had used, with friends of theirs providing both the set-up and the men to operate the “Big Store” swindle.  “Of course,” Heyes finished, noticing the slightly alarmed look on Miss Wellington’s face, “that kind of thing only works if the ‘mark’ thinks they’re going to get something for nothing.  I doubt a sensible lady like you would fall for it.”  He smiled.

       “It sounds as if it would be very difficult to guard against,” she answered, smiling in spite of herself in response to his charm, though the compliment made her wary. 

       “Not really.  Just remember—if a deal sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  Anyway, we sent the ten thousand dollars we got back from Mrs. Turner to Sheriff Trevors, to be returned to the proper authorities, and that was the end of that.”  Smoothly, Heyes began to change the subject, not realizing quite how much he had said or implied about their peculiar relationship with Lom Trevors.

       Miss Wellington was still thinking about what Kid Curry had said.  She turned to him.  “Mr. Curry, please don’t think all women are like that.”

       He blushed suddenly.  “I know that, ma’am.  I wouldn’t be alive now if it hadn’t been for one lady….”  He stopped.  His understanding with Lillian O’More was far too new and fragile to talk about it with a near stranger.  He hadn’t even written to her since leaving Telluride, though he had gone so far as to buy a travelling letter-writing ensemble in Denver, complete with a corked and capped bottle of ink, several pens, a quantity of cream-laid writing paper, matching envelopes, and a helpful little book, _The Gentleman’s Guide to Letter-Writing_.  If Heyes really did plan to complete this job and go all the way to Laredo with the Wellingtons, he would be able to tell Lillian, in his next letter, that she could write to him care of the Laredo post office, general delivery.  He suddenly realized that, if it proved at all possible for them to trust the Wellingtons, he was going to make the decision for them both and _tell_ Heyes they were going to Laredo.  How else would Lillian be able to write back to him? 

            

* * *

[1] Adhesive tape was patented by an American, Henry Day, in 1845, with the development of specially-designed adhesive bandages following in the early 1880s. 

[2] As was correctly shown in many episodes of _Laredo_ , most Rangers did not wear badges at this period.  They carried badges, or official paper documentation issued by the state of Texas, when needed.  Captains of individual companies would sometimes take the initiative to provide badges, made from large Mexican five-peso silver coins.  The design of a five-pointed star with the words “Texas Ranger” on a circle enclosing it was retained when badges were first officially issued in 1935.

[3] The town of Seven Rivers, New Mexico is no longer in existence, but was originally a trading post, and was used as an outlaw hideout during the Lincoln County War in 1878; at this period, it was still a lively small settlement.


	4. Night in Ratón

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Could the men who attacked them be after Heyes and Curry rather than the money? Heyes hatches a daring plan to find out, and takes the opportunity to find out more about the Wellingtons. Before he and Kid can decide what to do next, he needs to know why their employers haven't tried to arrest them or turn them in for the rewards.

       As they approached the little town of Ratón, more of a railway stop than a town, Heyes realized they’d have to alter their usual routine and plan to spend the night at the hotel, because Paul needed a doctor’s care, and it would be awkward seeing the doctor and then leaving town to make camp.  He said as much.  “As far as the danger of anyone approaching us in the hotel and trying to get hold of the money is concerned, we’ll just have to take extra precautions.  After all, you took the risk of attending a church service before we left Trinidad this morning.  You just kept the money with you.  I don’t think those men whose tracks we found will come back, but Kid and I will take turns keeping some kind of watch.”

       Paul exchanged a quick look with his sister, who spoke up.  “Gentlemen, I think there is something you are not considering.”

       “Oh?”  Heyes thought he had planned for everything.

       “Yes.  What if those men were after you?  For the reward?”

       There was a slight silence.  “The lady has a point there, Heyes,” drawled Kid.

       “That would imply they were bounty hunters,” said Heyes uneasily, “who don’t care what they have to do as long as they can get their hands on us, dead or alive.  That attack could just as easily have killed one or both of you.”  The more he thought about it, the more the pattern of the attack fit with her suggestion.

       “If we were in Texas already, and I didn’t have a hole in my head,” said Wellington, frustrated, “I could protect you, but as it is …”

       “Protect us?  How?” asked Kid.

       “By saying you were in my custody, of course, showing my badge if necessary.  But I have no authority here, since neither of you is wanted in Texas.”

       Kid looked at his partner somewhat dubiously.  They’d never before had anyone try to protect them by offering to put them under arrest; well, except Belle and Jesse Jordan, he thought to himself, and that had been a different kind of situation, where the family had taken them into custody only at Heyes’s urging, and with a great deal of reluctance.  Besides, the Jordans weren’t law officers. 

       He noticed that Paul had unbuckled his gun belt and was engaged in rolling it up.  He put the rolled-up bundle of leather into the top of his right saddlebag, where there was some space available, and buckled the flap, then looked up and saw both outlaws watching him.  “I don’t wish to draw attention to our party with an empty holster, for which I would have to think up some explanation other than the true one,” he explained calmly.

       Heyes nodded.  “Makes sense.”  He exchanged another look with Kid.  There was unfortunately nothing they could do about that problem just yet.  It would be foolhardy to hand back the Wellingtons’ guns simply because they had been having a friendly conversation for the last ten miles, before he and Kid had decided what to do and whether they could trust them.  Too many things could still go wrong.

***   ***   ***

       In town, after seeing the doctor to have Wellington’s head wound stitched up, checking in at the hotel, and paying the old veteran at the livery stable to look after their horses, the party sat down to a late supper in the hotel dining room, prepared to take whatever they could get in the way of a meal.  As late as it was, they expected to find that cold left-over food was all that was available, but the cook was able to heat up a generous quantity of beef stew and serve with it most of a loaf of fresh bread, baked earlier in the day. 

       Heyes suspected that the cook, a motherly woman of middle age, had gone out of her way to serve them because she felt sorry for Wellington, who was a suitably pathetic sight with pale skin and a bandage, startlingly white against his black hair, wrapped around his head.  The doctor had praised their efforts at cleansing and bandaging the wound, saying that it did not appear to be serious and that the stitches could be removed in about ten days if the injury healed as expected.  He warned them to wake the patient from time to time during the night to be sure that he hadn’t lost consciousness.  Upon hearing how the wound had been sustained, he urged them to make a report to the marshal the following day so that the attackers could be searched for and apprehended.  Promising to do so, the four of them had left his surgery before he could ask any more questions.

       “I suppose we’d better plan for the possibility that those men will follow us into town, maybe have another try at us tonight,” Heyes said, speaking in a low tone while mopping up the last of his plate of stew with a piece of bread.  “We’d better decide now how we’re gonna handle that.”

       “Switch rooms?  After we take our keys and go upstairs, I mean?” suggested Miss Wellington.  The men all looked at her, surprised.  “We go into our own rooms, lock the doors or pretend to, turn the lamps down or out, then when everything’s quiet in the hotel, the two of us take your room and you take ours.  That would be a good way to find out which of us those chaps are after, don’t you think?  I have to be up from time to time during the night anyway, to check on Paul.” 

       She sounded as if she thought her suggestion were the most reasonable thing in the world, Heyes realized, as though she didn’t have any idea how dangerous it would be for her and her brother, who would be trying to nurse his bandaged head and get some sleep as the doctor had recommended.  The idea had merit, but it would need modifying.  It would, if handled right, allow them to surprise anyone trying to invade the other room by coming at them from behind.

       He exchanged a glance with his partner across the table.  Kid nodded very slightly.  Aloud, Heyes said, “Kid and I’ll have to work out the details.  We’ll go to our own rooms first, and you—” he glanced at Wellington “—try to get some sleep, take care of that head wound of yours.  One of us will come to your door after it gets dark, maybe about half-past eight.  But you’ve got to agree to do everything exactly the way I say.”

 _Well, he was the leader of an outlaw gang at one time, wasn’t he_? Miss Wellington mused.  The previous days on the road had not really been sufficient to allow her to become familiar with Heyes’s need to control his circumstances in any way he could.  She was only just beginning to realize how difficult that could become for everyone around him.  She nodded gravely.  “Certainly.” 

       Heyes looked across at Wellington, who inclined his head slightly and then shut his eyes against the discomfort that caused.  “Good.  Then expect us around half-past eight, and be ready to move into our room then.  We’ll discuss the details before we turn down the lamps.”  He stood up and, after a moment’s hesitation, offered his arm to Miss Wellington while they went to the front desk to retrieve their room keys.  With one hand under an elbow, Kid assisted Wellington to rise, and followed.

       In their room, Heyes looked at his partner, exasperated.  “She acts like she’s got no idea how dangerous this could be.  If those men are after us, and they bust into this room and find only an invalid and a girl … and if they’re bounty hunters, like we think …”  He shook his head.

       “If you think that, why’d you agree to it?” asked Kid reasonably.

       “Because I thought _you_ thought we could make it work!” exclaimed Heyes, annoyed.  “It _is_ a good idea, if we can work it out so she’ll be safe.”  He suddenly realized he was not making any sense, and worse, was asking his partner for advice.  That would never do.  He started to say something, but his cousin interrupted.

       “Come on, Heyes, it’s a good idea, like you said.  You can make it even better, especially since they agreed to do it your way.”  He shook his head.  “Honestly—giving ’em orders like you thought they were members of your gang or something … You want to know what I think?”  Receiving no answer, Kid glanced over to see an indescribable expression on his partner’s face as he accepted the rebuke.  “Well, whether you do or not … Heyes, are you listenin’?”

       “’Course I am.”

       “Get ’em both over here in this room, with the cash, as soon as it’s dark enough to risk making the move.  Tell ’em to leave all their things in their room.  Get Wellington settled in bed and try to get him to sleep.  I’ll go over to their room, blow out the lamp, and pretend to go to sleep.  I’ll fix up the other bed like somebody was in it.  You stay here, out of sight from the door, to back her up if those fellows bust in here.  And give this back to her, so there won’t be only one gun in here to deal with them.”  He drew the Colt .44 from his jacket pocket and handed it to Heyes.

       Taking the gun, Heyes smiled a little.  “Changed your mind?”

       “Not exactly,” hedged Kid.  He saw the look on Heyes’s face.  “Yeah, I’ve changed my mind.  I don’t know if we can trust them all the way, but I can tell you, Heyes, she’s nothing like Grace Turner.  Besides, I’m writing to Lillian, and I’m going to tell her she can write to me in Laredo, General Delivery.”  He paused, belligerently, to wait for a remark, but his partner wisely refrained from comment.  “And then,” he added, “you and Miss Wellington can have a nice quiet chat, here in this room in the dark while you’re waiting for something to happen.”

       “If she’ll sit in a darkened room and talk to me,” commented Heyes, “with her only chaperon asleep with a hole in his head.”

       “Why shouldn’t she?” Kid demanded. 

       “Why _should_ she?  Trust me, I mean?” Heyes countered.  “Come to think of it, though, they’ve already trusted us, of course only with the money, not her reputation.  I didn’t think of it till now, but if they knew who we were when they took those robbers to the sheriff in Colorado Springs, and they weren’t sure we were going straight—Kid, don’t you think there was something odd about them leaving us to guard the money?  Kind of risky leaving us alone with sixty thousand in cash, wasn’t it, if they knew we were outlaws?  The more I think about that, the odder it looks.”

       “Maybe it was a test.  Maybe they wanted to be sure they could trust us before we got much further south.  You know, this ain’t all one-sided.  They had to decide to trust us way back before we had to decide whether we can trust them.  They’re carrying more money with them on this trip than we’re worth turned in for the reward.”

       “Yeah.”  Heyes fell silent, thinking.  This job was definitely not turning out the way he had expected.  Checking his watch, he smiled.  “I’ll go tell them to come over here, so I can explain what we’ve planned to do.  And then I’ve got some questions.”

***   ***   ***

       Paula looked over at her brother as she knitted in the dim light of one turned-down bedside lamp while they waited for Heyes or Curry to come to the door.  “How’s the head?”

       “It feels fine, actually.  I know the doctor said I was to take it easy, and you were to wake me up several times through the night, but it’s not painful now, except for where the stitches are, and I feel perfectly rested and restored, especially after that good supper.”  He sighed.  “I know.  You still have to wake me up from time to time, but do me a favour and refrain from making a fuss.”

       She smiled.  That was what he had always said, when, as a boy, he had sustained some minor injury and worried their parents or their nurse.  “Very well, I promise I shan’t fuss over you.”

       A very soft knock on the door came; she rose, putting aside her knitting, and opened it to disclose Hannibal Heyes.  She swung the door a little wider and stepped back, allowing him to slip in quickly and shut the door on the betraying light.

       “It’s all set,” he said, voice muted to just above a whisper.  “Both of you come on over to our room and I’ll explain what we’re going to do.”  He stepped over to Wellington, sitting in the room’s second chair, and offered him a hand.  Smiling wryly, Paul got to his feet without assistance, closed the book he had open on his lap—a Bible, Heyes noticed—and walked to the door.  Picking up the saddlebags that held the cash, Miss Wellington followed, and Heyes brought up the rear, shutting the door carefully behind him. 

       Kid was waiting for them, opening the door just wide enough for them to come in.  He slipped past them quietly and crossed the corridor to the room they had just vacated.  Both doors were shut and the exchange of rooms made in near silence, without attracting attention.

       Turning up the two wall lamps, Heyes looked to be sure that his guests were comfortable.  At half-past eight, no one would think it odd that the occupants of the room had not gone to bed yet, though it was common on late autumn evenings for everyone to retire early, especially on a Sunday night in a small town.  The hotel had already grown almost still.  Wellington had sat down on the edge of one of the beds, and his sister was just settling herself in the wing chair by the little wood stove in the corner, her knitting in her lap and the saddlebags by her feet. 

       Heyes held out his hand.  “Let me put those somewhere else.  We don’t want them in sight from the door.”  As she passed him the saddlebags, making no objection, he added, “And you should take this.”  He proffered her revolver with his other hand.

       Paula took the gun without comment.  Heyes noticed with approval that she pulled the hammer to half-cock and checked the loads before letting the hammer down and putting the pistol in her lap, under the bag holding the yarn she was working on.  Obviously she didn’t want to go to the trouble of extracting it from her pocket if there was a need to use it.

       Looking over to find Paul watching him, he explained, “I’m not giving yours back yet.  You’re supposed to be going to bed early and getting some sleep.” 

       Wellington nodded.  “I shall.  But does that mean that your partner—and you—have decided we are to be trusted?”  He added shrewdly, “Or is it just because you think she may need her gun tonight?”

       Heyes was left in the novel position, for him, of not knowing quite what to say in response.  After a pause, he replied.  “We’ll talk about trust later.  But, yeah—your sister may need her gun if those fellows decide to bust in here looking for us.  I’m staying here with you, with the lamps turned out, so I hope she won’t need it.  Kid will set up the other room to make it look like both of you are there.”  He waited for objections.

       They came, surprisingly, from Miss Wellington.  “Don’t you think it would be better if the two of us take this room and you two take ours?”

       “Well, it would,” replied Heyes, “except if they _are_ bounty hunters, and they’re after us, I’m not going to leave the two of you in here alone to face them—a woman and a fellow with a hole in his head.  It’s not safe.  I’ll stay with you, and Kid can manage in the other room alone.  Then, whichever room they hit, if they come at all, Kid or I can back up the other one, come up behind them.  It’s not that you can’t take care of yourselves under normal circumstances,” he added quickly.  “I know you can.  But this is our problem—at least, if they break in here, it is.  And you’ve got a concussion—you’re in no shape to fight,” he said to Wellington.

       Lying down and making himself as comfortable as he could, the other man nodded.  “I don’t think it’s that serious, but I see your point.  I take it you want me to lie here and be a decoy.  If someone comes in and sees only me, and someone supposedly in the other bed … we’ll need to arrange the bedclothes, use that bolster over there, perhaps … then one or both of you can get the drop on them from behind.”

       “That’s the idea.”  Heyes nodded.  “And Kid’ll be here in less than a minute, coming in behind them.”

       “There’s a problem with that,” objected Miss Wellington.  “If they’re after you, and they see your face, then we won’t be able to pitch a tale to the marshal about a party of men bursting in here and waking us up out of a sound sleep for no good reason.  They’ll object that they were only doing their jobs, trying to catch a pair of notorious outlaws, one of whom they saw in this hotel room.”

       Heyes digested this.  She was right, not that he had been particularly worried about what the Wellingtons were going to say to the marshal in the morning.  “I’ll keep behind them.  So will Kid, when he comes in.  They don’t have to see his gun to hear when it’s cocked and pointed at them.  You two will have to tie them up and gag them, so we can leave them here alone for a few minutes while we go across the hall and discuss what we’re gonna do next.  That’s assuming they come.  I think they will.  Anybody who’d push a boulder down and risk killing men and horses won’t be discouraged because the first attempt failed.”

       Checking her watch, Paula got up to blow out one of the lamps, then returned to her chair and resumed knitting, replacing her gun in her lap.  “We probably have several hours before anything happens.  You need to get some sleep,” she said to her brother.

       “I’ll certainly try.”  He turned over so his back was to the door and the other lamp, pulled the quilt over his head, and appeared to fall asleep at once.

       Heyes was adjusting the other lamp.  Neither had said anything about what he thought was the most objectionable part of his plan—his sitting in a darkened room with a lady, with her brother asleep in bed with a bandaged head.  After a moment’s hesitation, he blew the lamp out and stepped over to the window, pulling the curtains a little way open to see if the waxing crescent moon, not yet quite half full, cast any light.  Except for a silvery sheen on the lower edge of a cloud to the west of them, the moon was not very useful at this point.  The mountains obscured any direct view of it, though it would cast more light later as it rose higher.  He made his way back to the chairs that he had pulled into position out of sight from the door.  Miss Wellington was sitting right where he had left her, still knitting.  He could hear the faint clicks as her needles touched at each stitch.  The pale oval of her face was barely distinguishable in the dimness.  He wondered how she could manage to knit in the dark.

       “Sorry about the lamp,” he said.  “I know you need to check on your brother from time to time, but we can’t risk a light.  This is supposed to be our room, remember, and there’d be no reason for us to leave the lamp lit.  Don’t argue with me, all right?”

       “I was not intending to do so.  I don’t object to sitting in the dark talking with you.  I hope that doesn’t make you think that … well, that I’m being unladylike.”

        “No, why would I think that?  This is my idea, not yours.  I think you’re taking it very well.”  He paused, watching what he could see of her hands working with the needles.  “How can you see to knit?”

       “My night vision is good, and besides, I don’t need to look at this while I’m working on it.  It’s only a sock.  I shan’t need to see what I’m doing until I start turning the heel.”

       That explanation didn’t seem to explain.  After a moment, Heyes dismissed from his mind the problem of knitting an invisible sock and thought about how to phrase what he wanted to ask.  _Why didn’t they turn us in for the reward?  And if they have some objection to collecting a nice reward—some people do:  I know Doc Donovan did, and so did the Jordans—why didn’t they try to turn us in as part of their duty, since they work with the Texas Rangers?  They could have done that in Colorado Springs, when they took those robbers to the sheriff’s office.  Why didn’t they_?

       “I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he began aloud, speaking just above a whisper so as to keep his ears open for any movement in the hallway, “if you knew who we were when you rode into Colorado Springs with those men, why didn’t you tell the sheriff?  Not that I mind, all right?  But it looks to me like you and your brother could use twenty thousand dollars on that ranch of yours.”

       “Turn you and your partner in?  For blood money?  Is that what you think of us?” responded Miss Wellington after a moment’s shocked silence.

       “Now, hang on a minute.  It’s not blood money.  We’re not wanted for murder or anything like that.  They wouldn’t hang us if they caught us.”

       “It _is_ blood money.  Those rewards are offered to encourage people to do something immoral, out of sheer unadulterated greed, primarily for the convenience of the railroads and the banks, which I suppose found the two of you and your activities a hindrance to business.  We wouldn’t do it, either of us.  It’s dishonourable.  How could we use money acquired that way?”

       “Wouldn’t the money come in handy on the ranch?” asked Heyes bluntly.

       “I daresay it might.  But we don’t need it.  We came over here when we were nineteen.  My brother left Oxford, where he had been planning to take a degree, I left my aunt and uncle’s home in London, we collected our inheritance, and used the money to buy the horses we wanted and get the ranch started, the buildings constructed, and so on.  There’s not a great deal of money available now, but the horses pay for themselves, bringing in enough for us to live on and to keep the ranch going.  We also hired a foreman, and we pay a share to our old nurse, Ellen Ramsay, who came over with us, she and her two boys.  She lives with us as chaperone and housekeeper.  She’s like family—she’s looked after us ever since we were born, and after our mother died, she’s been like a mother to both of us, especially to me.” 

       She realized she was digressing and stopped.  “The point is that we have enough for what we need.  I can’t imagine using reward money for the ranch, or for anything else.  I’d be ashamed every time I looked at the new stable, or whatever we decided to use it for.”

       Heyes realized she must be agitated.  The faint light from the window allowed him to see that she had stopped knitting and was gesturing with the needle just freed from the yarn to emphasize her points.  “That’s good to know,” he replied.  “But there are a lot of folks out there who _are_ just interested in the money.  We’ve only met people three times who weren’t.”

       She bent her head over her knitting for a moment.  When she had re-inserted the idle needle into the work to her satisfaction, she looked up.  “Were they Christian believers, by any chance?  Very religious?”

       Surprised, Heyes assented.  “Well, twice they were, at least.  I’m not sure about Dan Loomis, a young farmer up in Wyoming, but he said he wouldn’t take even a part of the reward, because it didn’t seem right, so maybe he was, too.  Doc Donovan was an Irish Catholic.  We found out later he only turned us in because he was expecting to be appointed to an important legal position for the Territory of Arizona, and he thought if it became known that he didn’t turn in a pair of wanted outlaws when he had the chance, it would affect his career.  But he felt so bad about it that he apologized to us and told the sheriff, in our hearing, to give the reward to the Sisters of Charity.  The other folks—we just met them about three months ago:  Belle and Jesse Jordan and their two daughters, twelve and fourteen—are quite religious, I think.  Talking about how important it was to get the girls to Sunday school, Mr. Jordan reading his Bible on a weekday afternoon—and they seemed to have some pretty strong principles.”  He glanced over at her.  “How’d you know?”

       “That would explain, better than anything else I can think of, their reluctance to touch the reward money.  It’s a moral matter.  How did you meet this Jordan family?”  Paula refrained from asking how, if they had been turned over to a sheriff in Arizona, it had happened that they were now riding along the Front Range, quite free.  Maybe someday she would find out.  It promised to be an interesting story.

       Heyes described how he and Kid had been running from a persistent and determined posse, had taken shelter with the Jordan family without mentioning their real names or that they were wanted by the law, and had consequently precipitated the entire family into serious trouble. 

       “We’d kind of like to keep in touch with them,” he finished, “because they did a lot for us.  I guess they believed there was good in us somewhere.  And we did leave them a thousand dollars to try to make up for all the trouble we caused, so they could move to Denver without having to wait until their ranch was sold.  I like them.  So does Kid.  And it isn’t just because they objected to turning us in and accepting the reward.”

       “You said they were moving to Denver?”

       “Yes.  I don’t know when, or if they’ve made arrangements to have mail forwarded that is sent to the ranch.  I suppose we could write, but what we’d use for an address so they could write us back …”

       “Use General Delivery in Laredo.  That’ll reach you,” she replied.  “That is, if you’re going to stay with us until we get there.”

       “Well, that’s an idea.  Kid’s already told me he’s going to use that as an address to send to Miss O’More in Telluride when he writes to her.  But …”  Heyes suddenly stopped.  “I’m the one who’s asking the questions,” he said, with a deprecating smile, unseen in the darkness.  _We seem to have gotten completely off track.  And I need to_ know _.  I need to know if we can trust them, and why_. 

       “Of course.”  Her tone was matter-of-fact.  “What else did you wish to know?”

       Heyes was silent for a minute, collecting his thoughts.  If they weren’t interested in the reward, that left another perplexing matter to be dealt with.  “How’d the two of you get involved with the Texas Rangers?”

       She rose, laying aside the knitting bag but keeping the gun in her left hand, and shook her brother by the shoulder.  “Paul?  Wake up.”

       “I’m awake, more or less,” he muttered.  “My head hurts again, I can see you quite well—that is, as much as the light allows—and I don’t feel dizzy.  Stop making a fuss.”

       _No one could fail to see that they are brother and sister_ , thought Heyes.  _Even I wasn’t that rude to a lady when I got shot in the head_.

       “I have some lavender.  I could soak a handkerchief with lavender water, for your head.  It would also help you sleep,” Paula offered.

       “Better not,” Heyes cautioned.  “If we do have visitors, and they come in here looking for a pair of outlaws, and smell lavender …”

       “You’re quite right, of course.  Altogether the wrong sort of smell.”  She chuckled softly.  “Forgive me, I wasn’t thinking.”

       “If we catch anybody,” said Wellington, “I might just take you up on that, later in the night.”  He turned his head on the pillow and seemed to be drifting off to sleep again. 

       His sister returned to her chair and set about answering Heyes’s question.  “As it happens, we bought our first Friesian horses from a friend of our father’s who lives in the Netherlands:  Mynheer Jaeger.”[1]  Sensing Heyes’s bewilderment, she said, “This really does have to do with the Rangers.”

       He grinned.  She was very perceptive.  “Go on.”

       “Mynheer Jaeger has a son named Erik—about your age, I think—who left Friesland about six years ago to come over here.  He told his father it was just for a visit, but he never went back.  Mynheer Jaeger wrote to my brother, giving the address he had for his son in Austin, Texas, and asking if we would look him up.  It’s well over a thousand miles between Estes Park and Austin, but he didn’t understand that, of course.  We went down there in late 1875, found Erik, who by then was using the name Hunter—a translation of his Dutch surname, of course—and discovered he had joined the Texas Rangers.  He told us about it and it sounded so interesting that Paul wondered if we could possibly do some work for them in the winters, when there is hardly anything to do on the ranch except to put out hay for the horses and try to stay warm.  Erik had just arranged to transfer to Company B in Laredo.  He introduced us to Captain Edward Parmalee, who commands that detachment, and we brought up our suggestion.  With Erik’s recommendation, Captain Parmalee took us on a part-time basis.  We’ve been going down there every winter, though we usually take the train as far as we can, using a livestock car to transport our horses.  There are no railroads running north and south in west Texas yet, so taking the train only saves about ten days.  This year we decided to ride the entire way, because of the money.”

       “All right, let me ask you,” said Heyes, coming to the point.  “You’ve been involved in law enforcement for five years, with one of the most prestigious outfits in the country.  I can understand you not wanting the reward on us, but wouldn’t you or your brother consider it your duty to turn us over to a lawman, or arrest us yourselves?  You’ve said you’re not going to do that—that you never planned to.  And I believe you—at least I think I do.  But why?  Doesn’t that go against everything the Rangers expect of you?  Didn’t you have to swear some kind of oath?”

       “We took an oath to uphold the law in Texas, and to obey the lawful orders of our superiors in the force, yes,” she replied.  “But Captain Parmalee told us that the Rangers are not interested in wasting time and manpower catching outlaws wanted in some other jurisdiction.  If a man wanted for a capital crime comes to Texas, or if an outlaw from somewhere else starts causing trouble in Texas, they’ll take notice, but otherwise, we were told quite forcefully not to bother with such matters.  If they went about arresting everyone who was wanted by the law for some reason, they’d have to arrest some of their own men.  At least one of the men in Company B, Joe Riley, is in that position.  He joined the Rangers to escape the notice of a lawman who was hunting him for something.”

       After a moment’s silence, she added, “We could introduce you and give you a recommendation.  Captain Parmalee would probably like to have you.”

       “I just bet he would.  Especially after he heard we’re wanted for ten thousand dollars apiece.”

       “That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” she flashed back, annoyed at his cynicism. 

       “Sorry.  But look here, you’re not seriously suggesting…?

       “Why not?  No one would need to know your real names.  In Texas, that’s not a question that’s usually asked.”

       Heyes was astonished.  Maybe he and his partner should investigate the opportunity of hiding out down in Texas … no, that was just crazy. 

       “Look, I appreciate the thought.  But I want your word on one thing.”

       “What is it?”

       “That you won’t tell Parmalee, or any of the Rangers, or anybody in Laredo, for that matter, anything about us—our real names, being wanted by the law in Wyoming, anything about these bounty hunters, if that’s what they are—unless I say you can.”

       “You have my word,” she assured him.

       “And mine as well.”  The voice came from the bed by the window.

       “You’re supposed to be asleep,” Heyes reminded him.

       “Oh, I was.  But I think I’ve heard most of what you’ve saying, though it seemed like a dream some of the time …”

       “Quiet!”  Heyes was on his feet, drawing his gun.  He went to the door, then quickly returned to his position by the wardrobe, out of sight of anyone entering from the hallway.  “Someone in the hall.”  He waited, his thumb on the hammer of his revolver.

       In the silence, all three could hear someone trying the lever of the door.  When it failed to open, they heard the slight sounds of metal against metal as the unknown intruder expertly forced the lock.  A moment later the door swung open.

       Heyes could make out the silhouettes of two men, visible in the dim glow from a shielded lamp in the hallway.  He held his position, wanting to let them get well inside the room before getting the drop on them from behind.  Neither was carrying a light of any sort, giving an advantage to the watchers, whose eyes were already adjusted to the darkness.

       The man in the lead stepped between the two beds, drawing his gun.  “Get your hands up, owl-hoots, and don’t try anything funny.  I won’t hesitate to shoot.”  His partner came up behind him, gun in hand, pausing less than a foot in front of Heyes, whom he could not see.

       Wellington lifted his hands from under the blankets so the attackers could see he had no gun.  He did not speak, knowing his British accent would give the game away. 

       “Neither will I, gentlemen,” Miss Wellington warned.  There followed the sound of her Colt being cocked.  “Drop the guns, now.  On the bed.”

       The second man had already discovered that one of the beds had only cushions stuffed under the bedding, rolled up to make it appear that someone was sleeping there.  “Hey, Bill, there’s no one …”

       Another pistol was cocked behind them.  “I’d do what the lady says,” Heyes suggested.

       The second man, realizing that one of the guns trained on them was held only by a woman, swung around suddenly, raising his revolver, hoping to intimidate her.  He crumpled to the floor as the barrel of Heyes’s Schofield cracked across the back of his head.

       From the open door came the sound of another gun being cocked, and a soft, deadly voice.  “That’s far enough.  No, don’t turn around.  Drop the gun.”

       Bill released the hammer of his gun and dropped it hastily, raising his hands.

       “That’s more like it,” said Curry approvingly.  “Mr. Wellington, would you tie them both up?  That’s if the other one hasn’t got a broken head.”

       “He was starting to point a gun at Miss Wellington.  I thought I’d better not take any chances,” explained Heyes.  His partner might be a little surprised, he thought, at his having hit one of the men over the head.

       “I’ll do better than tie them up,” Paul offered, extricating himself from the bedclothes.  “I have two pairs of handcuffs with me.  I’ll use those.”

       “Handcuffs?”  The bounty hunter was startled.  That meant this unassuming young Englishman was a law officer of some kind.

       “Yes.  I’m a Texas Ranger.  You’ve just forced the lock of our hotel room, entered it with intent to harm, threatened my sister and myself with fire-arms, and, if you’re the pair we have to thank for the rock that came down on our heads earlier today, committed a felonious assault upon a public highway.  I daresay I shall think of a few more charges by morning.”  Paul was handcuffing the man’s hands behind him as he spoke.  Before his prisoner could reply, he had taken a kerchief from his open saddlebag and gagged him.

       After the man’s feet were tied and his partner similarly restrained and gagged, Heyes and Kid holstered their guns and withdrew quietly to the room across the hall, motioning to the Wellingtons to follow.

       When the four of them had entered the room and shut the door, Kid struck a match and lit one of the lamps.  “Well, now we know, Heyes,” he said quietly.  “They really were after us, not the money.”  He looked at the twins.  “Everybody all right?”

       “Yes, thank you.”

       “Yes, even the unconscious chap.  He’ll have a concussion, but he was coming around as I was tying him up.  He should be well enough.  The doctor can take a look at him in the morning, after I’ve turned them over to the marshal.”

       Heyes shot a look at his partner.  “We need to talk about what’s to be done in the morning.  If you plan to turn them over to the marshal, we can’t stay here.  They’ll tell him the reason they attacked us, he’ll check into the story, and it’s an easy step from there to finding out we’re Heyes and Curry.”

       “No, you can’t stay now.  You need to be gone long before morning; in fact, I’d say you’d better leave town now, as soon as you can get your horses saddled.”  Paul sank into the armchair, resting his head cautiously against the back as he looked up at Heyes.  “On the other hand, I shall be expected to remain here a day or two so that the doctor can check on my head injury.  I can give a statement to the marshal at the same time.  You should take the money with you.  We’ll arrange to meet later.”

       “Take the money?”  Heyes was dubious.  “And leave both of you here?”

       “You’ve transported large sums of money before, haven’t you?  At least that’s what the telegraph we have from your friend Sheriff Trevors said.  But I was thinking that Paula should go with you.  That way, she, you, and the money would all be safe, as far away from these murderous chaps as may be.”

       Heyes’s natural cynicism came to the fore.  “Right.  We leave town in the middle of the night with the cash and your sister.  All you’d have to do is tell the marshal that Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry stole sixty thousand dollars from you, and forced a woman to go with them.  You’d have every man in town volunteering for the posse.  And they’d be shooting to kill.”  He stopped, unable to ignore the expressions on the twins’ faces.

       “You could protect yourselves by using me as a hostage,” suggested Miss Wellington with deceptive sweetness.

       Both outlaws were revolted.  “We wouldn’t hide behind a woman, ma’am,” said Kid indignantly.  “Even to save our lives.”

       “I know you wouldn’t.  Any more than my brother would send a posse after you.”

       There was an awkward silence.

       “Two of us are gonna have to decide to trust the other two,” said Kid.  “Otherwise there ain’t no way out of this mess.”

       Heyes knew the answer to that.  The Wellingtons had already demonstrated their willingness to take them on trust.  They had been completely consistent, in fact, treating the outlaws from the beginning like the honest men they were hoping to become.  He hesitated.  He wanted to control this situation, but it kept slipping from his grasp.  “I’ll have to think about it.  We’ve got a few hours yet before we have to move.”

       “Wait.”  Wellington pulled up his left trouser leg to get at the top of his boot, from which an elaborately carved hilt protruded.  He drew out a foot-long blade with an unusual triangular shape, the sharp edge on one side tapering from a heavy, flat back edge.  The hilt was inlaid with a silver cross, the arms of which were backed by a circle.

       The outlaws exchanged looks.  Neither had ever seen the weapon drawn during the week they had spent on the trail—its owner had kept it a complete secret.  They wondered what he planned to do with it now.

       Paul stood up, grasped the blade by its back, just below the hilt, with his left hand, the point extending under his forearm, back toward his own body, and held it out so they could all see the hilt.  “When my mother’s father gave me this dirk, when I was only a lad, he adjured me to always carry it with honour.  And he told me that while I should probably have little occasion to use it as a weapon, there was one use I could always make of it.  If there is a need to swear an unbreakable oath, a Highland gentleman will swear on his weapon.  As I do now.”[2] 

       He laid his right hand across the hilt and its circular guard, his palm covering the inlaid Celtic cross.  “I do here swear this oath upon this weapon, that if you will take my sister and the money to safety, agreeing to meet me later at a place and time of your choosing, I shall say and do nothing to hinder or harm you, whether it be sending a party after you, telling the marshal or anyone else your true names, or engaging in any other such action with intent to harm you.  And I call upon my ancestors who carried this blade, and God and all His holy angels, to witness this my oath.”

       Slowly, never taking his eyes from Heyes’s face, Paul kissed the hilt and laid the dirk down on the bedside table.

       Curry and Heyes looked at the beautiful dagger, at one another, and then at Wellington again.  There was nothing they could say. 

       Kid felt his soul stirred by the strange little ceremony.  Somehow it reminded him of tales their grandfather Curry, who had been born in Ireland, had told them of battles, and of one of his ancestors fighting in the army of Red Hugh O’Donnell—fighting the English, who didn’t understand such things as a gentleman’s honor.  He looked again at his cousin.  “Heyes, it’ll be all right.  All you have to do is decide where we’re going to meet.”

       “Yeah.  I …”  Heyes could think of nothing to say.  His half-formed suspicions seemed ludicrous now, not to put too fine a point on it.  After a moment, he continued, rather lamely, “Let’s sit down, and figure out what the best place would be to meet you.”  He called up a mental map of this part of New Mexico.  “And before we agree to do this, it occurs to me to ask Miss Wellington …”

       “Yes?”  Paula had been silent, too, after her brother’s unexpected move.  She had not seen their grandfather Campbell’s dirk since she was a small child and had had no idea that Paul had it with him, or that he knew how to swear an oath upon it.  Well, if their grandfather had sworn him to secrecy, that perhaps was the reason.

       “… If you’re willing to go with us, and follow my lead until your brother can rejoin us.”

       “Yes, I’m willing.  You have thought out the entire scheme—how you plan to handle it.  You should lead the party.”

       That was assuming a lot, thought Heyes, since, as usual, he was making plans as he went along.  But her confidence gave him a warm feeling.

       Kid was examining the dirk more closely, without touching it.  His finger traced a line of words engraved in the steel blade.  “Mr. Wellington, what does this say?”

       Wellington picked up the dirk and read aloud, “ _Thoir dhomh fuil ri òl, oir tha pathadh orm_.”  He looked up.  “It’s in the Gaelic, and means, ‘Give me blood to drink, for I am thirsty.’”  Smiling at the expression on the gunman’s face, he restored the dirk to its sheath in his boot.

           

**Monday, November 8th, early morning**

Heyes reined his horse carefully through a mass of rocks that had recently slid down, almost obscuring the trail they followed.  The moon was setting, but he still had enough light to go by, reflected from the light-colored earth of the trail.  He had remembered that to the east, in the direction of an extinct volcano whose cone could be seen from Ratón in daylight, there was a series of small draws and canyons in which they could easily lose any pursuit.  There was also a cave, as he recalled, where they could hole up and get some sleep.  After Paul Wellington’s dramatic oath-swearing, the outlaw leader didn’t seriously expect any posse to follow them, but there was always the possibility, however remote, that the marshal would be unable or unwilling to hold on to the two bounty hunters for very long.  Wellington had said that he hoped to see them jailed, at least for a few days, on the strength of his testimony, but that was not certain.

       After a brief discussion, Heyes had agreed to send a sealed letter to Wellington at Lambert’s Inn in Cimarron, on the Santa Fe Trail, telling him where to meet them.  The instructions for finding the meeting place would be in the letter.  That way no one would know the location in advance, nor could anyone be led there by accident.  Heyes engaged himself to get his party to the meeting place by Friday the 12th at the latest and to wait there until Wellington was able to join them.

       Just before dawn, they found the cave Heyes and Kid had remembered from two years earlier, unsaddled their horses and the pack horse, and turned in.  They did not set a watch as was their usual practice.  That was probably unwise, Heyes thought as he drifted off to sleep, but he was too exhausted to do anything more than accept Miss Wellington’s assurance that they could depend on her ‘gentleman horse’ to give the alarm.  Accustomed to guarding his mares in the pasture, the stallion would not allow a man or an animal to approach without alerting them.

      

       They spent the entire next day and night in the cave, resting after their night of excitement and broken sleep.  Using their supplies lavishly, Miss Wellington cooked them three solid meals, even taking the time to bake fresh bread in the Dutch oven they carried.  She had brought some new patent dried yeast with her, hoping that they would have the opportunity to use it, but so far she had not had time to bake anything except various quick breads:  biscuits, bannocks, and soda bread.  The slow-rising bread, with its delicious brown crust, spread with some of the butter they had packed into a small stoneware crock sealed with wax, was a treat.  For the rest, there was flour for flapjacks, bacon, dried meat and vegetables which could be made into a stew, a little dried fruit, tins of tomatoes and condensed milk, and fresh ground coffee to be perked over the fire.  Miss Wellington, as usual, declined the coffee and made tea for herself.  It almost felt like a holiday of sorts, and Heyes had to remind himself that they were possibly still in danger, and had a schedule to keep.

       After they had eaten supper, lit by the brilliant half-moon almost directly over their heads, Kid attended to the washing up, while Heyes strolled over to sit beside Miss Wellington as she perched on a large table-shaped rock on the west side of the clearing at the cave’s mouth.  Rather to his surprise, she made no objection to his climbing the rock and sitting down rather close beside her, their shoulders almost touching.  In the frosty cold of a November night, the shared warmth was presumably welcome.

       “It’s beautiful out here, isn’t it?”

 

       “Indeed,” she replied.  “The moon is so bright tonight.  And look at the stars!”  For a moment they both looked up, toward the northeast side of the sky so the moon’s light would not interfere with the stars they could see.  The constellation of Orion was visible to the east, just above the horizon, the three stars in the belt standing out brightly.  “We could have used some of that light last night, with part of the trail being so rough, but of course the moon had already set before we got here.  You did a wonderful job leading us here, and finding this place in the dark.  You say it’s been two years since you were here last?”

       “Just about.  Kid and I were running from a posse—well, we’d already lost ’em—and we strayed up into these canyons.  Stumbled across this cave by accident.  I marked the location by how that volcano looks against the sky from here.”  He cautiously put an arm around her waist, enjoying her closeness, watching her face in the moonlight as she looked up at the stars again. 

       Looking up from his task of cleaning and stowing away the supper dishes, Kid Curry observed that the two silhouettes on the rock had almost merged into one.  He could see their heads clearly enough against the sky.  With a frown, he stepped closer, wondering what his volatile partner was up to this time.  He couldn’t hear their conversation, but he saw Heyes touch Miss Wellington’s chin with his fingers and lean forward.  Before he could complete the kiss, she drew back slightly and put her forefinger between his lips and hers.  Curry snorted with amusement.

       A few minutes later, Heyes joined him, a little chagrined.  “What did you think you were doing, trying that?” Kid demanded.  “Her brother’s trusting us to take care of her.  And she’s not that kind of girl, to let you kiss her when she hardly knows you.”

     “You never can tell,” returned Heyes coolly.  “But you needn’t worry.  She stopped me—I guess you saw that—and said no, she wanted it to mean something.  I can understand she doesn’t want to just be one of the girls I’ve kissed, but …”

       “Told you she was sweet on you,” said Kid, chuckling. 

       “Don’t give me that.”  Heyes was impatient.  No decent woman would be seriously interested in him that way, not if she knew who and what he was.  His cousin, maybe—at least Miss O’More in Telluride had shown interest even after forcing Heyes to tell her who they were.  But for a lady like Miss Wellington to display a serious romantic interest in a retired train robber—no, it was impossible, and he knew it.

       “Come on, Heyes, you know that, or you oughta.  It just means you’ll have to be real careful with her.”  His partner made no reply, nd Kid decided not to say anything further.  Not for the first time, he was saddened by the memory of his having been adopted from the Home for Waywards, by a nice family who treated him like their son, while Heyes had been indentured to a confidence man—not that the matron at the Home had been aware of that.  There was much that a father could have taught him, as he grew up, of which Heyes was completely unaware, while thinking that he knew all there was to know about women, and being completely undeterred by his frequent mistakes.

          

      

* * *

[1] In Dutch, this name is usually written “Jager”, without an _umlaut_ , as it would be in German, though it is still pronounced the same way; i.e. “Yeager.” 

[2] General Wade mentions the custom of swearing on the dirk.  “To put a stop to this practice which they thought an injury to the tribe, the whole clan of the Camerons (and others since by their example) bound themselves by oath….  This oath they take upon a drawn dagger, which they kiss in a solemn manner, and the penalty declared to be due to the breach of the said oath is to be stabbed with the same dagger; this manner of swearing is much in practice on all other occasions to bind themselves to one another.”

 


	5. Outlaws and Snow Storms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Delayed on the way by snow, Heyes and Curry and their party encounter another outlaw. Will he recognize them? Meanwhile, Texas Ranger Captain Parmalee has received a telegraph message containing some disturbing information about Joshua Smith and Thaddeus Jones. What will he do?

       In the morning, Heyes made sure everybody was awake soon after dawn, getting the fire built up for breakfast and fresh coffee and tea, so they could take the chill off from the November night.  “I’d like to get moving as soon as we can; otherwise we won’t make it to Cimarron until after dark.  I figure it’s about fifty miles from here.”

       Kid began saddling up, re-stowing the breakfast utensils and foodstuffs on the pack horse.  Seeing that he was not going to question his partner’s decision, Miss Wellington busied herself with her own tasks in silence, and they were soon on the trail, the sun gilding the edges of the striking volcano cone to the east, warming the prairie as it climbed higher.

       As they rode, she said, “Heyes?  You’re planning to ride right into Cimarron?  I thought you intended to post that letter to my brother without actually going into town.  The risk of being seen …”

       “It’s not that much of a risk.  I got to thinking.  I know Wellington suggested mailing the letter so that I could decide whether or not we wanted to come into a town where we were expected, but we do that quite a lot.  It’s just one of the risks we have to take, livin’ this way.  I know there’s a chance that the marshal in Ratón won’t be able to hold onto those two men, though if your brother presses charges on everything he said he was going to, they shouldn’t have much trouble making a few of them stick.  That leaves me having to decide whether we can trust your brother.  And I think we can.” 

       He glanced at his partner, who nodded.  “We’ll stay at Lambert’s Inn in Cimarron for the night, and just take precautions coming in and moving around.  The only question is whether they’ll have a room that’s fit for you to stay in, Miss Wellington.  There’s a range of well-appointed hotel rooms and suites, but there’s a saloon on the ground floor on one end of the building—that’s what they tell me, anyway.  We haven’t actually stayed there.  You’d need a room upstairs on the other end.  I suppose we could wire.”

       “No, that’s not wise, surely?  I ‘m sure they’ll have something to suit, or they’ll make some arrangements.  Sometimes it’s just a question of money.”

      

Lambert's Inn, Cimarron

       They pushed on steadily, stopping briefly for food on the trail, and finally rode into the town of Cimarron, still a lively place in spite of the railroad having  replaced the Santa Fe Trail as the main route from the northeast.  They had managed to cover the fifty miles in roughly eight hours, including the stop for their noon meal.  It had been a relatively pleasant ride, the weather unseasonably warm for mid-November.

       Asking the clerk at the hotel desk to see to their horses and have their baggage brought to their rooms, Heyes obtained a room for Miss Wellington which the clerk assured them would be quiet, at the east end of the hotel, as far away as possible from the saloon.  In any case, though there would be card games and other play going on, they were not expecting a large crowd on a Tuesday evening.  All three signed their names to the register and went up to their rooms, looking forward to washing the trail dust away before sitting down to one of Monsieur Henri Lambert’s famous suppers. 

       When they came down for supper, Heyes dashed off a quick note, addressed it to Paul Wellington, Esq., and left it with the desk clerk, explaining that he was expecting a friend to call for it.  He scanned the register quickly to see if Wellington might have already arrived, and gave an inarticulate exclamation.

       Meanwhile, Curry seated Miss Wellington in the secluded dining room, at the opposite end of the ground floor from the saloon, took his own seat across from his partner, and waited until the bill of fare had been recited to them and their orders taken for their chosen supper dishes.

       After they had eaten most of the meal, and were enjoying coffee and tea, hoping to be offered a dessert, Kid spoke up.  “All right, Heyes, out with it.  What surprised you about the register?  Wellington’s not here, is he?”

       “No, not yet; at least, I didn’t see his name.  But I saw another one I recognized.  Let’s just say if there are bounty hunters lookin’ to cause trouble around here, they probably won’t be interested in us.”  He looked from one to the other of his supper companions, enjoying the interest he was creating.

       “Well, go on.”  Kid was exasperated.  “Who was it?”

       “The name was signed Robert H. Howard.”[1]  Heyes smiled and waited. 

       Miss Wellington looked puzzled, but Curry, after a moment’s hesitation, commented, “Well, that’s unexpected, if it’s who I think it is.  One comfort is he won’t know us from Adam’s housecat.  He don’t pay much attention to what goes on in Wyoming.”

       “It’s an alias?” Paula asked.  “Another outlaw?”

       “Yes.  Jesse James is his real name, I believe.  And I think I’d know him by sight, because I’ve seen newspaper photographs,” replied Heyes.

       She frowned.  “Oh, yes, I’ve heard that name.  Isn’t there a brother?  I thought they worked in Missouri.”

       “Both true, ma’am.”  Kid sipped the fresh coffee they’d been supplied with as soon as they sat down.  “I don’t know what he’s doin’ out this way, and alone, too.  In any case, like Heyes says, he won’t know us, and if we act like we don’t know him, everything should work out just fine.”

       “Except,” Heyes cautioned, “that I don’t want to leave those saddlebags of yours in your room, or ours, with only one of us to guard them.  And I don’t want to take the chance of putting the money in the hotel safe, either.  I was going to see if there was a poker game available, but maybe we’d better not—not tonight, anyway.”

       “We could take turns, Heyes, while the other one stayed here in the dining room with Miss Wellington and the money,” suggested Kid.

       “Yeah, that might do.”

       Paula looked from one to the other.  That conversation seemed to indicate that they found the prospect of engaging in a game of poker attractive enough, or important enough, to put up with considerable inconvenience.  She asked about it, not quite understanding.

       “We do like to get in a little poker as often as we can,” Curry explained, “but Heyes here will come down with some kind of disease if he don’t get to play pretty regularly.”

       “Rubbish!”

       “No, Heyes, it ain’t rubbish.  Sometimes I think you’re gonna break out in some kind of rash.”

       “What—you mean he’ll come out all over diamonds and hearts?”  Paula giggled, unable to keep her face straight.

       “All right, all right.”  The outlaw leader accepted the ribbing from his cousin, as usual, but couldn’t help chuckling at Miss Wellington’s contribution.  _Come to think of it, she’s probably right._   “It’s like Kid said.  I do like to play regularly.  It helps me keep up my mathematics skills, and keeps my fingers sensitive.”

       “Then you’d better go and find a game,” she told him.  “I can stay here for a while with this excellent tea, if you both wish to go.”

       “No, one of us should …”  Kid broke off.  “Ah.  Problem solved.”

       The others turned to see what he was looking at.  Paul Wellington, his head no longer visibly bandaged, was approaching them across the dining room.  He dropped into a seat at their table and accepted a cup of tea from his sister.  Heyes signalled the waiter for another pot.

       “I took the train from Ratón to Springer and then rode over here, which allowed me to rest up for a day in addition to taking care of my business with the marshal.  I am, therefore, probably a good deal more rested than the three of you.  How far did you ride today?”

       “About fifty miles.  We got an early start and checked in here almost two hours ago,” answered Heyes.

       “What was this about a problem being solved?”

       “Heyes and I were just discussing sitting in on a poker game, one at a time, so the other one could stay here with your sister, or maybe find a seat in the lounge with her.  We didn’t want to leave her and your property alone in this hotel tonight.”

       “Go on,” encouraged Wellington, intrigued.  “Why not?”

       “Because,” Heyes returned, “there’s another outlaw here, a guest by the name of Robert Howard; at least that’s how he signed the register.”  Seeing the Englishman’s puzzlement, he added, “His real name’s Jesse James.  I don’t know if you’ve heard of him.”

       “Yes, I believe I have.  You don’t think he would rob a female guest, or the hotel safe, or anything of that nature, do you?”

       “With James, I don’t know what to think.  He’s got a reputation for some pretty bad behavior.  Not like us,” Heyes added virtuously.  “He’s killed at least two men, and one boy barely half grown.  And he and his gang do rob railroad passengers—I know that for a fact.  That’s discounting all the wilder stories I’ve heard.”

       “Would you know him if you saw him?”

       “I think so.  I was telling Miss Wellington I’d seen a newspaper photograph.  He won’t know us, though—either our aliases or our faces.  That’ll help.”

       “Then why don’t we go with you to the door of the saloon, and you see if you can spot him.  If he’s there, I’ll take Paula up to her room after I’ve eaten, while you stay in the saloon and keep an eye on him while you’re playing poker.  That way, if he gets up to something, you’d have some warning.  One of you could let us know.”

       Heyes nodded.  It was a good plan.  He waited while Paul gave an order about supper to the waiter and explained that he and his sister would return to the table directly, then led the way to the gambling area.

       “See him?”  Kid lowered his voice so his partner could barely hear him.

       Scanning the room, Heyes didn’t reply for a moment.  Then he indicated one of the poker tables with his chin.  “Yes.  That table where one man is just getting up.  The sharp-featured, fair-haired man sitting in the corner.  Looks like there’s room for both of us if they’ll let us sit in.  I guess we get to find out if he’s any good at poker.”

       “Very well, then,” Paul agreed.  “We’ll be in Paula’s room after I’ve finished my supper.”

       Heyes and his cousin made their way toward the poker table, Heyes stopping first to draw Paul Wellington’s revolver from his coat pocket and return it to its owner.  They would reload the twins’ rifles when they went to Miss Wellington’s room after the poker game.

***   ***   ***

       Back in the dining room, Paula rather hesitantly accepted the offer of a dish of ice cream after the proprietor, M. Lambert, had come to their table himself to find out why she had not ordered a dessert.  Ice cream was usually not too sweet for her to tolerate, for some reason—perhaps the milk in it alleviated some of the sweet taste—and she didn’t wish to offend M. Lambert.  Meanwhile, her brother began working his way through the excellently cooked and served four-course dinner—one could hardly call it a mere supper.  They had heard that M. Lambert was a Continental-trained French chef, and the food bore that out.

       Midway through the meal, M. Lambert approached their table with a dish of fruit and another dish of whipped cream.  “ _Mademoiselle_ , perhaps these will delight you.  _S’il vous plaît, compliments de la maison_.”

       “ _Quelle est votre gentillesse, monsieur.  Je vous remercie_.”  Her schoolgirl French was quite rusty, but she was able to thank him for his kindness in his own tongue.

***   ***   ***

       At the poker table, Heyes and Curry found themselves more than welcome, as two of the other players were obliged to make it an early night.  Taking into account the recent departure of a third gentleman, that left their table with five players, perfect for a well-balanced game.  The dealer’s choice was draw poker, which suited the cousins just fine.  Heyes was marginally more skilled at five-card stud, but they both enjoyed a game of draw as long as it was honest and played with a straight deck.  And their most careful observations did not lead them to conclude that the players, or the cards, were other than straight this evening.

       Mr. Howard, continuing to sit in the corner with his back to the wall, turned out to be a fair poker player.  Nothing brilliant, but he seemed able to hold his own.  Not wishing to attract attention, Heyes played a cautious game, folding occasionally when he thought he might have a winning hand, just to keep the play even.  Losses were well spread around the table, no one winning very consistently.  Both Heyes and Kid added to their pocket cash, but when Mr. Howard and another man eventually declared, shortly before eleven o’clock, that the night was getting on, everyone rose from the table well pleased with the evening’s play.

       Keeping a surreptitious watch on the more well-known outlaw until he retired to his room on the ground floor, Heyes and Curry finished off their mugs of beer and made their way upstairs.

 

**Wednesday, November 10th**

The four of them gathered in the dining room for breakfast, where they found that M. Lambert had provided the hotel guests with an impressive array of dishes.  Cold meats, baked egg dishes, fish, various fruit concoctions, and other creations in silver serving dishes reposed on the sideboard, where guests were expected to help themselves to whatever they desired.  Everyone had agreed that they wished to start early, taking a road to the south and east away from the mountains, skirting the east side of the desolate area known as the _Llano Estacado_ in northwest Texas and pushing on due south to Laredo.  It would save them a good deal of time and distance to avoid Santa Fe altogether and strike out east from Cimarron.

       Most of the other hotel guests, apparently, were not similarly inclined as far as getting up early was concerned.  They had the dining room almost to themselves, seeing no sign of Mr. James or any of the other men with whom Heyes and Curry had played poker the previous night.

       Unable to eat another helping of anything, Kid excused himself to Miss Wellington, got up from the table, and went to the window.  If it was another fine warm day, they could start as soon as the horses were saddled.  Pulling aside the curtain to look out into the street, he stared for a few minutes, then turned.  “Joshua?  Better come take a look.”

       Heyes put down his coffee mug quickly and came to stand beside him.  The window looked south toward the road they had planned to take.  The sky was grey, and the slopes of the mountains to the south and west were completely invisible, covered by a thick white blanket of clouds and fog.  Huge flakes of snow were already coming down, driven against the window panes by the rising wind.

       The outlaws resumed their seats at the breakfast table.  “There’s a big snow storm coming in, moving up from the south—just the direction we want to ride in,” Heyes informed the party.

       “I should have thought of that possibility, as warm as it was yesterday.”  Paul took a swallow of his tea.  “You don’t think we can make it out of the range of the storm before it gets too bad to travel?”

       “No, I don’t.  Either we stay here for a couple of days, or…,” Heyes hesitated before suggesting the alternative, “we take the train.  Only problem is, the line goes over Glorieta Pass to Lamy and Albuquerque.  We’d head south and east from there—they haven’t got the tracks laid any further south.  I was talkin’ to one of the men we played poker with last night, who goes to Santa Fe on business regularly.  There’s a spur line to Santa Fe from Lamy.  He told me that when they get a bad storm, it’ll close the route through the pass until they get the tracks ploughed open.”  He shrugged.  “Up to you.”

       “No, Mr. Smith, it’s up to you.  You’re in charge of security on this trip.  Whatever you think is safer and more practical.  We’ll abide by your decision.  We can certainly stay here if they can accommodate us.  The food is excellent, and I can wire Captain Parmalee about the delay.”

       Exchanging a quizzical look with his partner, Heyes excused himself with a muttered, “Wait here,” and disappeared through the swinging doors into the corridor leading to the saloon.

       A few minutes later he was back.  “Mr. Lambert says there are already travellers coming in from Springer with reports that the trains are being delayed.  All things considered, I think we’d better try to make it to Springer.  We can get there by noon if we leave now.  Then as soon as the line to Albuquerque opens up, we can be on the first train heading out.  It’ll be a cold, wet ride, but we’d better go as soon as we can get packed and saddled up.”

       “Wire ahead for hotel rooms?  They’ll be filling up fast, in this weather.”

       “I’ve already sent a telegraph to take care of that,” replied Heyes.  “If there’s nowhere to stay in Springer, then we’ll keep the rooms we have here.  But I’d rather be close to the train station so we can get the first train.”

       Wellington rose, offering his hand to his sister.  “Then we should get ready, should we not?”

***   ***   ***

       Arriving in Springer and checking into the rooms Heyes had reserved for them at the small hotel near the train station, the party spent the afternoon drying their clothes, weapons, and supplies, and warming themselves by the roaring fire in the common lounge.  Heyes and Wellington went to the train station and made arrangements for the four of them and their five horses to be accommodated on the first train going south.  The station master told them that because of the drifting snow in Glorieta Pass, it was usual in these storms to wait until they saw a train coming through from the south with news that the tracks had been cleared.  Without word as to conditions in the pass, it was useless to send out a train from Springer, even one equipped with a snow plough mounted in front of the engine.  The south-bound train would wait on the siding, coaled up and ready to depart, and its whistle would be blown half a dozen times half an hour before departure, so that everyone could board in plenty of time.

       At five in the morning, the expected whistle came.  Those waiting for the train had heard the whistle of the arriving north-bound train a few minutes earlier, and were awake and already occupied in making ready.  The horses were saddled and brought round to the hotel, and arrangements were made to transport the extra supplies to the train by hand-cart, rather than loading up the pack horse in order to take them a grand total of thirty feet.

       Fortified by a quick hot breakfast supplied by the hotel kitchen, whose staff were accustomed to working with the railroad’s variable schedules, the travellers walked over to the station and saw to the loading of their horses.  The stock car was nearly full, several other mounted travellers having been stranded the previous day as well.  The horses would be warm enough, and they had hay and water supplied to them to keep them quiet during the long, slow run over the pass.

       Heyes led the way to the two double seats he had managed to acquire near one end of the first passenger coach.  “Not that I want to call attention to anything, but since Kid and I are responsible for what you’re carrying,” he said in a low voice, “we should probably know where it is.”  He had seen three pairs of saddlebags stowed in the overhead luggage rack, but one pair had been left on Paula’s saddle with her horse.  “I know you didn’t leave it in those saddlebags.”

       “No.  Since we’re not riding today, I took advantage of wearing a walking dress to stow the items on my person.  You don’t see anything, do you?”

       Heyes flushed.  He had been invited to think about and even look at ladies’ undergarments before, but never by a lady to whom he was strongly attracted.  He looked her over carefully.  “No, ma’am, everything looks just as it should.”

       “Good.  Then I can just sit here and be a helpless female,” Paula replied.  “All of you gentlemen can look after me.”

       “Helpless?” Kid said in a low voice to Heyes as they took their seats across from the Wellingtons. 

       “Yeah, that’s what the lady said.”

 

Steam engine in falling snow

       The train left the station, slowly gathering speed.  The swath of golden light from the engine’s headlamp reflected from the banks of snow piled up on both sides of the tracks.  The worst of the storm was over, but some snow was still falling—they could see the flakes in the light. 

       Otherwise, all was dark.  The snow muffled most sounds; even the steady chugging sound of the pistons that moved the great driver wheels was barely audible.

       “We could probably get some sleep,” Heyes suggested, “as long as Kid and I take it in turns to watch.  It’ll be hours before we can see anything.”  He paused as an audacious thought crossed his mind.  “Miss Wellington, since you and what you’re carrying need looking after, don’t you think you should sit by the window, here by me, so that someone walking down the aisle can’t just reach out and put a hand on you?  I don’t think you’ll be too cold if we wrap you up with an extra blanket on the side by the window.”

       “That’s very thoughtful, Heyes,” she replied, with a long look at him, tinged with amusement.  “I don’t mind switching seats.”  Without further hesitation, everyone rearranged themselves, putting Miss Wellington and Heyes in one pair of seats facing the rear of the car, while Wellington and Curry took the other pair facing forward.  The two outlaws were in the seats next to the aisle, where they could keep an eye on anyone passing.

  

AT&SF rail line, Apache Canyon, near Glorieta

       Later in the morning, the train swung to the northwest around a long, gentle curve, and began the steep climb into Glorieta Pass.  The travellers had changed seats several times to ensure that those sitting next to the windows did not get too chilled on one side, but Heyes had managed to retain his seat next to Miss Wellington, and even, once when she seemed to be in some discomfort from the cold, to put his arm around her waist under pretence of warming her.  If her brother saw the manœuver, he made no remark, and she apparently had no objection. 

       They had eaten a cold lunch from their saddlebags, knowing they would be unlikely to have an opportunity for hot food until they reached Lamy, still many miles ahead.  The conductor had served out hot coffee and tea made on the top of the wood-burning stove in the corner of the coach, which helped to keep the passengers fairly comfortable during the long, cold journey, but all aboard were cheered by the announcement, as the train slowed for the Glorieta station in mid-afternoon, that an effort had been made to provide some hot provisions in the station.  They would have at least three quarters of an hour there while the tender was refilled with coal and the engine took on water.  The weary train crew was also being replaced with fresh men.

  

AT&SF station, Glorieta

       The station master’s wife had managed to prepare a large quantity of hot mutton stew for the incoming passengers and crew.  Supplemented with bread and other provisions that the travellers had with them, and washed down with gallons of hot coffee, this made for a more cheerful day than anyone had expected.  Heyes and Curry went to check on their horses and make sure that they also had enough to eat so as to stay warm in the semi-open car.

       “Hot water is available,” said Paul to his sister.  “Do you have those sachets of loose tea packed where you can reach them?”

       “Right here.”  She produced the required articles from the depths of her knitting bag.

       He made tea for both in the cups they carried with them.  “Are you certain you know what you’re doing, Paula?”

       “I usually do.  What in particular are you worrying about now?”

       “I saw Heyes put his arm around you in the train.  Perhaps you oughtn’t to allow him to take such liberties.  Or should I say something to him?”

       “No, don’t say anything.  I can stop him if there is a need.  It’s not the first time he’s favoured me with some mild attentions.  But he adjusted his behaviour immediately the one time I conveyed to him that he was over-stepping the boundaries a trifle.  I think,” she said, looking up and smiling, “now that he knows I … well, that I have a fondness for him, he’s trying to see how much I will allow him to do in that way.”

       “And how would he know that?  That you’re attracted to him?”

       “That I don’t know.  I believe it was something that Mr. Curry said to him, right after that rock fell in Ratón Pass and we told them that we knew them from that train hold-up in 1878.  Heyes has treated me differently ever since then—paid me a little more attention, made more efforts to engage me in conversation.  I’ve not said or done anything to betray my interest—nothing of which I am aware, that is.  If you should notice me being unladylike or, well, obvious, in that way, pray inform me at once.”

       “I shall.  You may be assured of that.”

      

       Forking some more hay to the horses from the bales that had been shipped on the roof of the stock car, Heyes and Curry were having a similar discussion.

       “Trying to see what you can get away with, Heyes?”

       “Get away with?”

       “Come on, I saw you.  With Miss Wellington.”

       “I was keeping her warm—and me, too,” replied his cousin with dignity.  “Quit your worryin’, Kid.  You know I wouldn’t do anything to embarrass her in public, or anything she doesn’t like.”  Heyes picked up a pail of water that one of the other men had handed in at the door of the stock car, holding it for his big claybank dun gelding to drink a few swallows.  “I guess I did want to find out if she likes me enough to let me do a few things like that.  Kind of gives me some idea where I stand, trying to get to know her a little better.”

       Curry preserved a tactful silence.  He took the pail and watered his own horse.

       “Well,” said Heyes, “they know who we are already, and don’t seem to mean us any harm.  Getting better acquainted sounds like a good plan.  We can always use a few more trustworthy friends.”

       “Yeah, I guess we can, at that.  We’d better get back there before all that hot coffee’s gone.”

      

       The western side of the pass had received much less snow and the train was able to make better speed, though the snow plough attached to the front of the engine was still pushing new accumulations of ice and snow from the tracks.  Finally, the train descended onto the semi-flat plain that lay northeast of Santa Fe, where the tracks rejoined the route of the Santa Fe Trail. 

  

Railroad bridge, west side of Glorieta Pass

 

**Santa Fe, New Mexico Territory**

       As they descended from the train, prepared to wait in as much shelter as they could find for the connecting train to Albuquerque, the travellers were surprised to find that the day was bright and warm, with no sign of the snow that had blocked the tracks on the other side of the pass.

       In the center of the town of Santa Fe, there was a lively and colorful marketplace filling the plaza.  It was a fine, sunny day, welcome after the cold, wet, snow, and the market stalls were doing a busy trade.  Kid Curry wandered idly, looking at what was offered for sale, but with no intention of buying.  He was just waiting while Heyes and the Wellingtons took care of whatever business they had, before leaving town and heading southward once more.  He saw sellers of the Mexican shawls called rebozos, leather goods of all sorts and varieties, and ceramic pots decorated in styles of several local tribes and pueblos.  One family had no stall, but a brightly colored woven blanket spread out on the ground displaying many pieces of the glossy black pottery typical of Santa Clara.  Another seller, a middle-aged woman, had an array of round flattish woven baskets that he knew, from his earlier travels in the region, to be Hopi.  As he passed by, she called out to him.

       “Hey, you handsome young fella.  One day soon you need a wedding basket!” she teased, indicating the round light-colored baskets with a design of red-brown triangles circling the interior.

       He smiled back, saying, “Afraid not, ma’am, sorry.”

       “Never too late, you wait and see,” she bantered, clearly not ruffled, and turned to chat with another potential customer.  He tipped his hat politely and walked on toward the side of the market where there were freshly cooked hot foods such as whole ears of corn roasting on a brazier.  Over a charcoal fire swung a big iron kettle full of steaming hot pinto beans; nearby was another kettle of savory meat stewed with red chile peppers.  He bought a plate with some of the beans and chile pork and a big floury tortilla, and sat down on a bench to eat, watching for his partner and the Wellingtons to arrive and meet him as arranged.  A boy came along with a cart, hawking prickly pear lemonade which he ladled out from a jug.

       When Kid spotted the rest of their party on the other side of the plaza, he wiped up the last of the bean juice with the last piece of his tortilla and ate it, returning the dented tin pie plate to the stall where he’d bought his repast.  He started walking toward Heyes and the Wellington twins, cutting across the plaza rather than going around the perimeter.  As he did so, he passed by a few other sellers whose wares he had not yet seen.  One of those was an older couple who had set up a canopy, next to a woman and her daughter with a number of Navajo rugs for sale.  He knew those by sight.  But the older couple weren’t Navajos—judging by the style of the jewelry they had spread out on a black wool cloth, they were Zuni.  Zuni turquoise work was unmistakable; they worked jewelry in silver, studded with many tiny polished bits of turquoise in raised settings.  The intricacy of many of the jewelry pieces was astonishing, but Kid didn’t intend to stop, as that kind of thing was not to his own taste.

       He passed them and started to walk on, and then stopped short and turned as something caught his eye.  _Tiny blue flowers?_   He went back a couple of steps, nodding to the older man and his wife.  Looking over their array of jewelry, he spotted the thing he had seen out of the corner of his eye.  Among the showy belt buckles and heavy necklaces, there was a delicate bracelet, made of six silver links.  Each link was formed of a dainty flower with eight turquoise petals.

 

       After a glance at the Zuni woman, he carefully picked up the bracelet.  In his memory, he could see Lillian O’More’s hand in his own as they turned one another in the moves of the square dance at the school house, and he could see in his imagination the bracelet of blue flowers adorning her graceful wrist and hand.  Her hands were strong and roughened by her work in the kitchen of her restaurant, but the grace was there all the same.  He had no way of knowing what would happen, or even if she would answer his letter or wish to see him again, but Kid knew if he didn’t buy the flower bracelet now, he would forever wish that he had taken the chance and done it anyway.  As if from a great distance, he heard his own voice asking, “How much?”  _I must be crazy, just plain loco_.

       “Six flower, six dollar,” the woman replied.  “Small one, for child?”

       He shook his head.  “No … it’s for my girl.”  Now he had said it aloud.  He had never, even in his own thoughts, called Miss Lillie his girl until now.

       The woman frowned and turned to her husband.  “Too small for a lady.  Need another flower.”  He nodded, put down the piece he was working on in his lap, and opened a flat box that contained bits and pieces of unfinished work.  After a moment, he grinned and handed his wife two more of the bracelet links.  She passed them to Kid.  “Big enough now.  Eight dollar?”

       “Sure.”

       He was about to hand her a ten-dollar gold piece when he heard a familiar voice.  At once he put down the bracelet and covered it with his hand.

       “Hey, Kid, what are you doing?  Been looking for you all over.”  Hannibal Heyes strolled over, nonchalant as usual.  “What are you looking at?”

       “These,” his cousin answered casually, picking up one of several rectangular silver belt buckles, each with a large sunburst shape in the center made of twenty or more thin turquoise petals arranged in a double circle.

       “What d’you want those for?  Fancy stuff will just make you easy to notice.  Some flashy buckle like that, folks’ll remember seein’ it.”  Kid always had been a little bit of a dandy, Heyes thought with a twinge of annoyance.

       “You should talk,” his partner retorted.  “Your hatband is the only one like it I’ve ever seen.”  _I should know since I’m the one who gave it to you._   “Now get out of here.  I’m negotiating,” he said, half joking, with a gesture toward the side of the plaza.  “I’ll meet you in a few minutes, over there where they’re making fry bread.”

       Heyes grinned.  “Sounds like a plan.”  Navajo fry bread was a treat they couldn’t get in Colorado.  He headed off to collect the rest of their party.

       Once Heyes was out of sight, Curry turned back to the Zuni couple, handing the bracelet to the woman to wrap up for him.  He couldn’t explain why, but buying a present for Miss O’More was something he wanted to keep to himself for the time being.

       “Wait.  Let him fix,” the woman said.  She handed the bracelet and the two extra links to her husband, who used his tools to remove the clasp, add the two flowers, and reattach the clasp.

       “Right.  Here’s ten dollars for everything.”  She looked surprised but pleased as he handed her two five-dollar gold pieces, and wrapped his purchase in a bit of cloth and then a small paper bag.  Kid folded up the parcel and tucked it carefully into his inner jacket pocket, then tipped his hat to the couple as he straightened up and sauntered over to join the others.  They had taken advantage of the fry bread stand themselves, he saw, while waiting for him. 

       After finishing their meal, they returned to the depot to retrieve their horses and board the south-bound train.  In answer to Heyes’s question, Kid shrugged.  “You were right, Heyes.  Those belt buckles were too flashy.  Pretty, yeah, but it’d probably attract too much attention.  So I didn’t buy one.”

***   ***   ***

     After leaving Santa Fe, the train continued south along the newly laid Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe tracks, trying to make up some of the lost time before arriving at the end of the line a few miles south of Albuquerque.  Heyes’s decision to take the train had added two hundred miles to the long journey to Laredo; on the other hand, the day and night spent aboard the train had saved them that much, plus over seventy-five miles of the original distance—almost two days’ ride.  On the whole, he thought they had come out well.  They were riding south and east now, in good weather, in no unusual degree of danger from outlaws, bounty hunters, lawmen, or even hostile Indians; if these conditions continued, they should, he calculated, arrive in Laredo by Thursday the 25th, perhaps even a day earlier.

       Miss Wellington and he were furthering their acquaintance in their daily conversations.  Heyes enjoyed the opportunity to spend time with her, more or less alone and out of earshot of their travelling companions, while not being obliged to make any special effort to seek her out or pay her any obvious attentions which would commit him to any particular course of action.  In return, she seemed to go out of her way to prepare the best of their food for him, ensure that there was fresh coffee at each meal, and generally reciprocate his attentions without jeopardizing her dignity.  They grew closer together over the long miles, hardly aware of so doing.

***   ***   ***

       In Laredo, Captain Parmalee of Texas Rangers Frontier Battalion Company B sat at his desk, puzzling over the contents of three telegraph messages laid out in front of him.  His men were all out on assignment, so he had a rare opportunity for quiet reflection and to catch up on some of the never-ending paperwork that went with the commandant’s job.  None of the rowdiest of his Rangers were anywhere near the Cactus Saloon, where they would normally have found or made trouble, started fights, and cost the state of Texas money for damages.

      The first telegraph read:  

                         COLORADO SPRINGS COLO             1020AM         NOV 5 1880

> CAPTAIN E PARMALEE
> 
>                         TEXAS RANGER COMPANY B LAREDO TEXAS
> 
> TURNED WOULD-BE ROBBERS OVER TO SHERIFF COLORADO SPRINGS STOP ESTIMATE ARRIVAL BY THANKSGIVING STOP AFTER TROUBLE IN DENVER HIRED JOSHUA SMITH AND THADDEUS JONES AS ADDITIONAL PROTECTION ON TRAIL STOP SHERIFF LOM TREVORS PORTERVILLE WYOMING GAVE THEM GOOD REFERENCES STOP RESPECTFUL REGARDS
> 
>                         PAULA A WELLINGTON             1017AM

 

       The second was in response to a wire Parmalee had sent to Wyoming.   

                         PORTERVILLE WYO          1150AM         NOV 5 1880

> CAPTAIN E PARMALEE
> 
>                         TEXAS RANGER COMPANY B LAREDO TEXAS
> 
> DELIGHTED TO PROVIDE REFERENCE FOR SMITH AND JONES STOP THEY HAVE WORKED FOR ME OVER PAST YEAR STOP HAVE HANDLED AND TRANSPORTED LARGE SUMS RELIABLY STOP FAMILIAR WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT WORK STOP JONES WORKED AS BANK GUARD HERE LATE 1879 STOP BOTH COMPLETELY TRUSTWORTHY STOP YOURS FAITHFULLY
> 
>                         LOM TREVORS SHERIFF          1147AM

 

       The third came from the marshal of Ratón in New Mexico.   

                         RATON N MEX       845AM           NOV 8 1880

> CAPTAIN E PARMALEE
> 
>                         TEXAS RANGER COMPANY B LAREDO TEXAS
> 
> CONFIRM PAUL WELLINGTON WORKS FOR YOU STOP CONFIRM JOSHUA SMITH THADDEUS JONES HIRED AS SECURITY ESCORT ON RANGER BUSINESS STOP BOUNTY HUNTERS HERE CLAIM SMITH AND JONES ARE OUTLAWS HANNIBAL HEYES AND KID CURRY STOP REGARDS
> 
>                         G ELLIOT MARSHAL       842AM

 

       The Ratón marshal’s message had required an immediate reply.  Parmalee drew the message form he had used out of his desk drawer and laid it beside the others.   

                         LAREDO TEX           900AM           NOV 8 1880

> MARSHAL G ELLIOT                    
> 
>                         RATON N MEX
> 
> PAUL WELLINGTON AND SISTER BOTH WORKING FOR ME ON RANGER BUSINESS STOP AWARE JOSHUA SMITH THADDEUS JONES HIRED AS ESCORT DENVER TO LAREDO STOP ALREADY FOILED ROBBERY NEAR COLORADO SPRINGS STOP OF HIGHEST IMPORTANCE WELLINGTONS SMITH JONES REACH LAREDO WITH FUNDS THEY CARRY STOP SMITH AND JONES HAVE LAW ENFORCEMENT EXPERIENCE WERE RECOMMENDED BY SHERIFF STOP NO KNOWLEDGE OF BOUNTY HUNTERS CLAIM STOP KIND REGARDS
> 
>                         E PARMALEE CAPT RANGER CO B       857AM

 

       After considering the two most recent telegraphs again, Parmalee drew a sheet of paper toward him, dipped his pen in the ink, and began to write:

      

       November 12th∫80

Dear Sheriff Trevors,

      After receiving your kind wire with references for Joshua Smith and Thaddeus Jones, who are currently providing a security escort on the trail for my Rangers transporting cash from Denver to Laredo, I find that another point has arisen on which I would welcome your advice.

      Smith and Jones have already been of considerable assistance to my Ranger Paul Wellington and his sister on their current mission to transport a considerable sum in cash to Laredo from Denver, on business for the State of Texas.  I am informed that they foiled one robbery attempt in Denver and another one on the trail near Colorado Springs.  They gave assistance after Mr. Wellington was injured in an attack on the road, allowing the assailants to be apprehended and turned over to a town marshal in northern New Mexico.  With this knowledge and after receipt of your telegraph message, I am, therefore, convinced of their skill, experience, and good intentions. 

      I am in receipt of a telegraph from the marshal of Ratón in New Mexico Territory containing some puzzling information.  He is holding men on charges of breaking and entering, and of felonious assault on the highway.  When questioned, these men confessed their occupation to be bounty hunters and stated that they thought Mr. Smith and Mr. Jones were a pair of outlaws called Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry.

      Since from your telegraph it is obvious that you have known them for some time, I am writing to you to ask if there is any truth in that allegation.  I checked our records here and found that although I was sent a pair of flyers with those names, back in 1879, the state of Texas has no interest in Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry.  They have committed no crimes here and are not wanted by the law in this state.

      I don’t think I need to remind you that the Texas Rangers value men of proven ability, and an outlaw background would be regarded by us as an advantage, considering the kind of work we do.  I am not asking questions about Smith and Jones with any intent to pry into their personal affairs, but only to help me decide whether they could be of use to the Rangers here in Laredo.  I would like to offer them jobs here, even if they are only able to give us the benefit of their expertise for a few months.  They sound like just the sort of men we could use in the Texas Rangers.

      I will be grateful for any information you can give me and assure you, if there is a need, that I will keep what you tell me in confidence.

Most sincerely yours,

     

Edward Parmalee, Captain

Frontier Battalion

Company B

Texas Rangers

     

* * *

 

[1] This name may be seen in the pages of the register at Lambert’s Inn, now the St. James Hotel, Cimarron, New Mexico.  Jesse James is known to have stayed there more than once, each time signing the register as Robt. H. Howard, each time staying in room 14.  <http://www.legendsofamerica.com/nm-stjameshotel.html>

     


End file.
